


The Somewhat Normal(ish) Life

by Regen



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: F/M, Gen, i'll post relevant warnings with each chapter, look this is going to have a smattering of things in it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22443892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regen/pseuds/Regen
Summary: A dumping ground for one-shots about the DMC crew.
Relationships: Kyrie/Nero (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 106
Kudos: 218





	1. He Almost Had It Right

**Author's Note:**

> I told you all I wanted to write more about this cast of lovable idiots and the competent women that put up with them, and so here I am. But rather than try and come up with another story line, I've decided (at least for now) to go the route of one-shots. They may not necessarily be posted in chronological order, though I'll give indication in the chapter notes as to where the one shot roughly falls in the timeline, if the writing itself doesn't indicate it.
> 
> While this does tie in with An Uncle's Thoughts, you shouldn't necessarily have to read it in order to understand what's going on (though the events in it will be referenced from time to time).
> 
> With that said, we'll be starting off with a kind of heartbreaking conversation between Nero and Nico.

“Nero-”

“No, we are not stopping so you can get smokes, it’s your own damn fault-”

Nico shoots him a half-hearted glare from the driver’s seat. “That ain’t what I was gonna say.” She pats her pocket. “Still got two left, I can make ‘em last.”

Nero looks over to regard her. “Then what?”

She blows out a breath. The sound comes across as almost nervous, which where Nico’s concerned likely means this won’t be a pleasant line of conversation. “So there’s been something buggin’ me that I wanna ask. But… look, I’m not gonna force an answer outta ya, I’m just wonderin’.”

Nero mentally braces himself for whatever she’s about to unleash. “Just ask.”

There’s a brief pause, a breath before the plunge, before she blurts out, “Did you really not know you were related to him?”

Of all the things she could have asked about… Why did it have to be that? He looks away, scowling in a mixture of annoyance and discomfort. “He wasn’t exactly upfront about it.”

“C’mon though. You look like him. Well.” Nico gestures with her hand. “You look like your dad, but since they’re twins, you look like him by proxy. And besides that, he can do a lot of the same stuff you can. You didn’t notice _any_ of that?”

His jaw sets stubbornly. “No, I didn’t.”

Nico scoffs. “Now I know you’re lyin’.”

“What happened to you not forcing an answer out of me?” Nero snaps.

His hope had been to get her to back off, and it works. Nico shakes her head but says nothing else, letting an uneasy silence fill the van. Nero looks out the side window as his thoughts spin. He’s pissed off about Nico’s line of questioning, but he silently admits that he shouldn’t be all that surprised. Other people were bound to have noticed, and in light of how everything panned out in Redgrave last month, questions inevitably will arise. Hell, Nico’s not the first to have asked Nero this, but it’s a lot easier for Nero to open up to Kyrie. She’s always been his rock and the one who holds him when things get to be too much.

The silence stretches on. Nero’s anger simmers down and guilt creeps in to fill the void. Nico’s never been one to word things delicately. The fact that she even gave him an out says a lot about how carefully she tried to proceed with the conversation. While it wasn’t as tactful as it could (or should) have been, it was an honest effort coming from her.

He rubs a hand over his face. Nico’s his friend. His best friend, one might say (aside from Kyrie). And she’s got better insight than most into having an absentee father who’s done, at best, questionable things. (Not that he _knows_ all of what Vergil’s done aside from Redgrave, but he’s picked up enough hints to know that’s not all he’s done. Dante killed him for a reason.) _Anyway_ , the point is, she’s his friend and her question made sense. It wasn’t unreasonable or uncalled for. He lashed out defensively, and that in and of itself might have been enough of an answer. But he doesn’t want to leave things at that.

He finally glances over and says, “I did notice.”

Nico says nothing, but her frown softens and she seems to be listening.

“I kept waiting for him to say something. Some kind of acknowledgment or explanation. You know, _something._ But he didn’t.” It hurt, honestly. Nero believed that Dante didn’t _want_ to acknowledge him. “So I decided that I wasn’t gonna ask. If he wanted to pretend that I wasn’t his – well, I grew up without my family just fine so I didn’t need him.”

“But he brought you into Devil May Cry. And I kinda always thought you two got along well.”

“We did. When he wasn’t being a pain in the ass.” Which was rather often, but that’s Dante for you. “That’s what confused me. He wouldn’t admit to what seemed obvious, but he still… he _tried_ , I guess. He gave me a job, he got to know me and Kyrie and the kids. I could tell he cared. Hell, he put up with me threatening to drag him down to Fortuna last Christmas.”

“Hold up.” Nico holds up a finger. “You threatened him into coming down for Christmas?”

“Kyrie invited him. I just tacked on a threat to make sure he came.” He smirks. “Hey, it worked.”

Nico laughs. “You fucking would.”

“It just… looking back, it makes sense, but it didn’t then. Best guess I had was that he was trying to be there to make up for eighteen years of being absent, but he didn’t want to admit it out loud. No idea if it was out of shame or something else.”

“Out of shame? For…?”

Nero stares at the dashboard in front of him. “I knew we were related. I just got a particular detail wrong.”

It takes Nico just a moment before it dawns on her. “…yeah,” she says quietly. “Yeah, I probably would have guessed the same.” She offers a little smile. “Hey, at least now you know that’s not why.”

True, it _is_ nice to know someone wasn’t ashamed of Nero being their son. Or nice knowing Dante isn’t, anyway. He’s not sure what his _actual_ father thinks. “Yeah, but I’m back at square one because now I really don’t know why he didn’t say anything to me.”

“Miiiight have something to do with Vergil being a complete disaster and prone to destroying entire cities.”

“Well he’s definitely not up for Father of the Year either.” Nero shakes his head. “Last month answered a few questions but it raised a hell of a lot more. And I have no way of getting them answered.” Thanks to his dumbass family members getting themselves trapped in Hell.

“Lady or Trish might know some stuff. ‘specially Lady, she’s known Dante for a damn long time.”

If they’re willing to tell him, that is. But it’s worth a shot. “Maybe. Once we’re not knee-deep in demons.”

“Can thank your old man’s shenanigans for that, too.” Nico rolls her eyes. “Grow one stupid house plant and suddenly the whole underworld wants to bust out. And we’re left the clean up the mess.”

_“We’re trusting you to take care of things top side, capiche?”_ Dante’s words echo in tandem with Nico’s. Nero supposes it’s a little bit of both. “That’s family for you.” It’s a pain, but it’s nice to be able to say that all the same. Who knows if he’ll ever see said family again, but that can’t stop him from keeping on going and doing what needs to be done. He’s got a job to do.


	2. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The brothers return to Devil May Cry.

Dante and Vergil step into a dark Devil May Cry. Morrison must have kept the lights off to save on electricity. It’s also rather cold, so the heat’s off, too. Despite the cold and the darkness, it’s home and Dante’s relieved to be back. He stretches out his arms and yawns as he walks over to the switch to get the lights on. “Home sweet home,” he says as the room fills with light.

Now that he can see the room better, it’s clear how much cleaner the place is. The cleaning crew Morrison hired to straighten up the place did wonders. There’s nary a speck of dust in sight. It’s fantastic, and now gives Dante an excuse to not clean for a very long time. He glances over and sees Vergil taking in the place. “It’s not like it’s changed since you last saw it, aside from the cleaning job.”

“It’s made quite the difference,” Vergil retorts. “The lack of smell alone makes the place three times more tolerable than it was back in May.”

“What smell?”

Vergil shuts his eyes and slowly shakes his head. “You didn’t even notice it? That’s disgusting, not to mention pathetic.”

“There was no smell!”

“There absolutely was. You likely became desensitized to it from living here for so long.” Vergil steps farther into the room, pausing when he reaches Dante’s desk. His eyes fall on the lone photograph frame propped up on the desk. His expression remains the same, save for the way his lips tighten together ever so slightly.

“I didn’t lie when I said she looked for you.”

“I never saw her.”

“She didn’t make it that far.” Dante still remembers her dying scream ringing out amidst the shrieking demons. “Don’t think she even made it past the front door.”

“I don’t know what’s worse then: thinking she abandoned me or knowing that she died trying to find me.”

“She wasn’t making it out of there alive, no matter what,” Dante murmurs. As painful as it is to admit, it’s true. Eva was doomed the moment Mundus sent those demons.

There’s a considering look on Vergil’s face, but whatever he’s thinking he keeps to himself as he turns away. “Where is my room?”

The subject change is fine by Dante. Likely they’ll revisit it again, when Vergil’s had more time to ruminate on it. For now, he’s glad to move on. “Up here.” He gestures to the stairs, leading Vergil up before he points to his room. “That’ll be it.”

Vergil swings open the door, and Dante leans around him to get a look. Morrison came through: there’s a full-sized bed waiting for them, with sheets and two pillows. Additionally, there’s a beat up dresser, a coat hook, and even a sword stand for Yamato.

“Well lookit that,” Dante says with a grin. “He went above and beyond.”

Vergil steps inside, examining the room. Not that there’s much to see, but it’s a start. He nods. “It’ll suffice. Once I’ve gotten my own funds I’ll repay him.” Coming from Vergil, that’s quite a lot of praise. “It’s been quite a long time since I had my own room.”

“Pretty sure that qualifies you as a hobo.”

“I am _not_ a… hobo,” Vergil spits out the last word with disdain. “You’re the one who dresses like one.”

“Says the man who has no bank account and has never paid a bill in his life.” He glances at his room, remembering something. He gestures to Vergil to wait a moment before he ducks into his bedroom.

Unlike Vergil’s barebones bedroom, Dante’s room exists in a sea of clothes, shoes, and other assorted clutter. He’s both glad and a little bummed that the cleaning crew skipped his room. But there are a number of things in here that he wouldn’t want strangers putting their hands on, such as what he’s rummaging for in his desk drawer. It takes a minute of digging to find it; not surprising, given how long it’s sat in there. But finally he finds it and pulls it out. He carefully removes the old handkerchief he wrapped around it, tossing the cloth on the desk as he heads back to Vergil’s room.

He finds Vergil hanging up his coat on the hangar. He tosses him the item he found. “You dropped this.”

Vergil catches it in his hand without even looking. There’s a brief suspicious glance before he realizes what he has in his hand. His eyes widen; it’s a rare, genuine moment of shock. After all these years, his half of the Perfect Amulet still glistens beautifully under the dim ceiling light. The gold chain hasn’t fared quiet as well as the jewel; there are signs of wear and tear in the links, and the gold sheen has dulled a bit. Dante half expects Vergil to gripe about that, but his brother remains stunned silent. He reflexively steps back and sits on the bed, still staring at the amulet in his hand. “You kept this,” he finally says, both a statement and question at once.

“’Course I did.” Dante scoffs. “It’s all we have from Mom. You thought I was gonna leave it there?”

Vergil likely thought he would never see it again. He lost so many parts of himself back then. He lost Yamato, the gift from his father. He lost the amulet, the cherished memento from his mother. He lost himself in the transformation to Nelo Angelo. He lost so much that Vergil, in a sense, ceased to exist. But then he slowly reemerged and reformed. Piece by piece he returned, and now the last part of him has been restored.

He’s unusually quiet, and Dante fidgets in the doorway. He wonders if he should leave. Maybe he can go order food while Vergil has his moment-

“Thank you,” Vergil says, so low Dante almost misses it.

But he doesn’t, and he’s almost as taken aback as Vergil had been a minute earlier. “…did you just-”

“Don’t grow accustomed to it,” Vergil retorts as he loops the chain around his neck.

“Now that’s more like it.” Still, Dante’s never going to forget that. It’s the first – and may very well be the only – time Vergil’s ever thanked him for anything. “Right. This has gotten weird enough. I’m ordering a pizza. Gotta let them know I’m not dead.” He begins to walk away, but he stops a few steps in. He backs up until he’s in the doorway again and jabs a finger at Vergil. “And no, you still can’t have my amulet, too.”

A small smile appears on Vergil’s face. “I suppose I’ll settle for just having mine.” That smile turns sly. “For now.”


	3. The Weakness of Reassurance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vergil struggles with the " weakness " known as needing reassurance.

Sometimes, the nightmares still come.

Vergil finds himself back in Hell, Mundus looming over him, his otherworldly voice booming in might. “The heart is a tumor of weakness.”

Inky blackness swirls around him, covering him and drowning him. He struggles, but it’s for naught. He’s too weak.

“So let me rid you of it.” Was it not what he’d always said? His humanity had always hampered him. Yet the moment he feels the vestiges of it slip away, he panics. _No. No!_

“You need neither ego, nor memories.” Bit by bit, his memories fall to the vacuum of the darkness overcoming him. He fights in vain, trying to cling to them, but they slip through his fingers.

“I will bestow upon you a new name, servant of the demon emperor. Your new name will be…”

_Nelo Angelo._ It rings in his mind, the sound erasing the memory of Vergil and everything he had been. Gone, gone, it’s all gone. He’s nothing, just a pawn. He serves the demon emperor. It’s all he’s ever done, for there is nothing else. He is nothing else. The darkness consumes him, and he falls.

“Dad.”

Vergil’s eyes fly open, nearly shutting again instinctively as the light hits him. Nero stands in front of him, concern etched into his expression. His eyes soften as he looks his father over. It’s only when he glances down does Vergil realize that he’s got a white-knuckled grip on the arm of the chair he’d nodded off in.

“Have we arrived?” he manages, his voice hoarse.

Nero nods. “Do you need a minute?”

“I’m fine.” _Foolishness. Weakness._ Yet he cannot deny that the sight of his son reassures him. He should not need to be reminded that he’s fine now, but no matter how much he chides himself, the relief still burns strongly. He hates this weakness, this need of reassurance and comfort. But it’s not like Nero forces it on him. His presence alone is enough.

Nero looks less than convinced, but he backs off to go get his weapons. Vergil can all but hear the questions he wants to ask. So far, Nero’s been remarkably patient and restrained. More than he deserves, Vergil knows. But some day his son’s patience will wear thin. Someday, he’s going to have to tell him of the nightmares that still nip at his heels.

For now, he just takes a deep breath and works on centering himself. He is no longer Nelo Angelo, or Gilver, or V, or all the other shattered identities he’d taken over the years while he clung onto existence. He’s Vergil again. He’s a son of Sparda. He’s the father of Nero. He’s a demon hunter. He’s whole once more. As long as he has these things, the nightmares will never take hold of him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone get this man into therapy.


	4. A Portrait of History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nero learns a bit more about the family history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone. Sorry for the updates being so far apart. Things have been crazy between school and the damn pandemic. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy right now.

Nero’s nineteen when he first sees Eva’s portrait on Dante’s desk during his first visit to Devil May Cry. Dante had conjured up some hackneyed excuse for Nero to finally see the place. Nero knows it’s bullshit, but honestly, he’s glad to get to travel. He’s never gotten to leave Fortuna much, and never farther than the nearest coastal cities.

Dante had run out to get pizza, leaving Nero alone in the building with Trish. She pages through a magazine while stretched out on Dante’s couch. Nero wanders the room, getting a better look at the place now that Dante’s not hanging over his shoulder. It doesn’t take long before he checks out his desk and naturally, the photo stands out. He frowns in confusion. “Why does he have a photo of you on his desk?”

Trish freezes for the briefest moment before she calmly looks up from her magazine. Nero had barely caught the passing panic, and he has no idea what to make of it. It’s not like Trish to be caught off guard. She stays quiet, longer than Nero expects, and he begins to wonder if he somehow brought up a sensitive topic when she answers, “That isn’t me.”

“Uh-”

“I know what you’re thinking. And yes, she looks just like me. Or really, I look just like her. That’s on purpose.” She sets the magazine down on the couch. “That woman is Eva. She was Dante’s mother. From what I understand, that’s the only surviving photo he has of her.”

This is going in a direction Nero could never have imagined. His frown deepens in confusion as he looks back at the photo. “So, why do you look like her?”

There’s a calculated look in Trish’s eyes and in the way she deliberately crosses her arms over her chest. Maybe calculated isn’t the word. It’s more like wary. “Has Dante told you anything about his past?”

Nero shakes his head. “He’s not exactly the chatty type when it comes to that sort of thing.”

“He’s like that with everyone.” Trish leans back against the couch. “Dante’s mother was killed when he was a child. Demons were sent to kill them. He and his brother, Vergil, barely escaped, but Eva lost her life in the attack.”

That explains a few things about Dante. “They were sent?”

Trish nods. “When Sparda rose up and defeated the legions of the underworld, he sealed them off from the human world. He also had to seal away the leader of those legions: the demon emperor, Mundus. That seal lasted a long time, but no seal lasts forever. A few decades ago, it finally weakened enough for Mundus to break free. The first thing he did was to try and find Sparda. Assumedly, he discovered his family and that’s when he sent the demons to kill them. Unfortunately for him, they were only partially successful.”

“Okay, but I don’t see how-”

“I’m not done.” She shoots him a silencing look before continuing, “He had to resort to other means to try and defeat Sparda’s sons. Eventually he had no choice but to try and lure Dante to his base on Mallet Island. And he knew the best way to exploit Dante’s emotions.” Trish gestures to herself. “That’s how I came to be.”

Nero’s mouth drops. “He… wait, he made you? To look just like his mother?”

“He did. He knew that my appearance would disarm Dante and he’d be more cooperative. It worked, though not in the way Mundus hoped. Dante defeated him in the end, and despite what I’d done, he gave me a place to stay and a new purpose.” She chuckles. “So, that’s how we met, and that’s why I look like Eva. Though I’ve been told I act nothing like her.”

Well, damn. He just got answers to a couple questions he’s had. A part of him wants to ask Trish more about this demon emperor and what made her want to help Dante, but he realizes that might be a bit insensitive. Instead, he turns back to the portrait. “He must really miss her. He doesn’t have any family left, right?”

“No, they’re all gone. Dante is the last of his family.” Trish says the words, but there’s an air of rehearsal to them, almost like she’s repeating a script from off-hand.

“But he had a brother, too. Did this Mundus get his brother?”

There it is again, that fleeting panic before she evens out her expression. “Vergil disappeared long before Dante and Mundus’s battle. It’s possible that he did, but I can’t say either way.”

Nero tries not to be too rankled by Trish dodging giving him a straight answer, but whatever. It’s really not his business in the end. So, he just nods and turns away. “At least he had one, even if only for a little bit.” The bitterness spills into his voice. “Not everyone’s so lucky.”

Trish’s uneasy silence only confuses Nero further. And he’s tired of feeling confused, so he walks off and puts the conversation out of his mind.

* * *

Two months after the Redgrave incident, Nero finds himself back in Devil May Cry. He’s just gotten back from an exhausting mission with Lady and Trish. The mission hadn’t been too far from Capulet City, so the girls suggested he and Nico crash at the shop for the night before making the long drive back to Fortuna. Sore and beaten, Nero couldn’t refuse the offer.

Nero decides to crash on the couch in the office. With a pillow and blanket in tow, he starts to beeline for the couch when he passes by Dante’s desk. A side glance at the portrait makes him stop. He’s seen that face staring out at him more than once, but this is the first time he’s seen her and realized who she is to him. He’s not just seeing the woman whose death sent Dante and Vergil careening along their respective paths. He’s looking at his grandmother.

He sets his things on the desk to take a closer look at her. He’s barely given her any thought since he had learned about her a few years earlier, but now he wishes he had asked more. He wishes he asked Dante to talk about her and tell him what she was like. Maybe Dante wouldn’t have, he knows she’s a touchy subject, but he could have at least tried. Now he might never know.

“It was hard not to tell you everything.” Nero looks over to see Trish leaning against the wall, watching him. “You caught me off-guard, though I should have anticipated it. I was hoping Dante would wind up fielding that question, but maybe it’s for the best. He might not have told you as much as I did.”

“I never asked him about her.” He picks up the frame and takes a harder look at his grandmother. “Or my grandfather. Now I might not ever get to.”

“There are people left alive who knew Sparda. There are other avenues to get answers about him.” Trish gestures to the portrait. “But as for Eva, I don’t know. She’s a mystery to me.”

Nero shakes his head. “Even if there are, it wouldn’t be the same. I want to hear it from _them_. Those two should be the ones telling me.”

There’s a pained sigh, followed by a nod. “I agree. And you may yet, Nero. This isn’t Dante’s first stint in the underworld. He’s broken out before; he can do it again.”

“How long did it take him last time?”

“…about two years.”

“Two years?!” Nero’s heart sinks. He had figured Dante and Vergil would be gone for a while, but two years?

“But he was alone last time,” Trish points out. “…then again, I’m not sure if Vergil will be a help or hindrance.”

“So it’ll be longer.”

“I don’t know, Nero. But… if I had to guess, I think it won’t be as long.”

“Why? You didn’t sound convinced my father would be able to help break them out faster.”

“Because they both have something worth coming home for.”

It’s a strange feeling, to be worth something to someone. Outside of Kyrie and her family, no one’s ever really regarded Nero as someone important to them. He scoffs, trying to shake the feeling. It’s too good to be true, it has to be. “But not important enough to stay for.”

“They had to go-”

“Both of them?”

“Yes.” Trish holds up a hand to stop Nero before he interrupts. “It’s hard to explain, but Dante went with Vergil for a reason, and not because he particularly wanted to be trapped in the underworld. Just because they had to leave doesn’t mean you’re not important to them. They wouldn’t have set aside their rivalry for just anyone.”

They _had_ , but Nero only saw glimpses of it before he had decided to put an end to it. “Was it really that bad?”

“Lady can speak to that much better than I can, but from what I understand, yes.” Trish gestures to Eva’s picture. “Her death has a lot to do with it, but that’s something that needs to come from them.” She straightens up from her perch against the wall. “I’ve kept you up long enough. Get some rest, Nero.” With a turn she disappears into an adjoining room.

Nero takes a final look at his grandmother before he sets the frame back down on Dante’s desk. There are so many questions rattling around in his head, but he thinks he’s gotten another piece or two of the very complex puzzle that is his family history. But he still needs a lot of information. There’s too many missing pieces and he can’t make out what any of it means.

“Wonder what you were like,” he says to Eva’s picture before he grabs the pillow and blanket off the desk. “If Dante still misses you so much after all this time… you were probably pretty great.” He makes his bed on the couch before flopping down on it, kicking off his shoes. “Hopefully I’ll get to find out, one day.” Find out about her. Find out about Sparda. Find out about everything else in the past that’s been hidden from him. He just hopes that day won’t be too far off.


	5. The Long, Dark Shadow - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The possibility of an old enemy returning creates a rift in the Sparda family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, yes, this technically isn't a one-shot since it's broken up into parts, but it's too small to warrant its own fic so here we are. There'll be three parts, each one told from one of the Sparda boy's POV. First up is Dante.

Dante swears that if he somehow lives to retirement age, he’s coming to Fortuna. Okay, sure, the locals might not be too pleased about it but who cares? Word’s gotten out that Dante and Vergil are Nero’s family so as much as the locals might not like it, they’re going to be showing up here more often. Besides, Dante had helped save the island once, surely that has to be good for _something_. But whatever, xenophobic locals or no, the idea of living out his twilight years stuffed to the gills with Kyrie’s cooking and being a general nuisance to Nero sounds too good to pass up. He’ll drag Vergil along, too. Nero and Kyrie might have kids sometime down the line, so they can be there for that. The whole family could be together in one place again.

_Shit, that really does sound nice,_ Dante thinks from his sprawled position on Nero’s couch. _Really nice._ Now the idea is something he might seriously give thought to. He yawns as he stretches out. _One thing at a time. That’s a long ways off._ He glances over towards the dining room and spies Vergil sipping on some tea. Nero sits across from him, knocking back the last of his own drink. The conversation seems to have died down, but the silence is companionable.

Dante revels in the peace these moments bring. They’ve all been through so much, and the family’s been split for too long. He wants to savor this time while he can. And for once, there’s no fighting or anything hanging over their heads. They all had enjoyed a nice Christmas without anyone getting stabbed, punched, or anything broken. (Nero had tossed Dante and Vergil out once, but only for a moment and that’s because they had started arguing about whether _Die Hard_ counted as a Christmas movie or not). Now it’s just a few days after the New Year. They have two more days before they have to go back to the shop. While Dante’s missed the work, he’s going to miss being here more.

The phone rings. Nero pushes his cup away as he rises from the table. In two long strides he reaches the phone and picks up the receiver. “Devil May Cry.” He pauses and then frowns before looking at Dante. “Yeah, he’s here. One sec.” He holds out the phone. “It’s Trish.”

Dante grunts and swings his legs off the couch. “What, she wanna brag about the warm weather she’s having?” he jokes as he walks over. She and Lady were spending another holiday at sunnier shores. Joke’s on them, though, Dante thinks as he grabs the phone from Nero. He’s getting homecooked food and they’re not. “Hey.”

“ _Dante._ ” Trish’s voice is tense, and immediately Dante stiffens in alarm. This can’t be good. “ _We might have a problem.”_

“Don’t tell me someone tried to break into the shop again,” he says in a half-hearted attempt at a joke. “You’d think they’d have learned after one of the devil arms fell on them.”

“ _I wish. I heard from one of my contacts. There’s been some reports of possible demonic activity. If they’re true, we need to look into it immediately.”_

“Demonic activity?” He shakes his head. “Ugh, could it really not wait?” Just when he thinks that the demons had decided to behave themselves-

_“Dante, the reports are saying it’s coming from Mallet Island._ ”

He damn near drops the phone. “You’re shitting me.” His heart slams against his ribcage and immediately his thoughts begin to fly to the worst case scenario. _No, he shouldn’t be back this soon. How?_

“ _Nothing’s confirmed yet, but we can’t take any chances. It’ll be a bit before my contact gets back to me with more info. But you need to be ready. We all do.”_

Dante looks over to Vergil. Until that moment, Vergil had been watching him with slight curiosity. However, the look on Dante’s face causes Vergil to sit up straighter. His brother frowns, regarding Dante with wariness. “We’ll talk it over,” Dante says to Trish while still looking at Vergil. “You’ll call as soon as you hear?”

_“Yeah. I don’t know how long it’ll be.”_

“Just – your contact better hurry the hell up.” Talking is just wasting time at this point. Dante hangs up the phone and rubs a hand over his face.

“What is it?” Nero asks from the kitchen. Kyrie stands just behind him, looking uneasily between Dante and Vergil.

Vergil’s hand tightens against the table. “Where do we need to go?”

“At the moment, nowhere. But we may need to leave. We’ll find out once Trish calls back.”

“What’s going on?” Nero demands again, voice growing tenser. “You looked ready to drop dead from shock.”

Dante shoots him only a brief glance before looking back at Vergil. “Trish heard from a contact of hers. There are rumors that there’s been something happening… on Mallet Island.”

Vergil gets the same look he had back in the underworld, when they had come across Mundus’s old lair. He doesn’t move, doesn’t react, but the pallor in his cheeks and the haunting memory creeping across his eyes tells Dante everything he needs to know.

“Mallet Island…” Nero looks towards the table, torn between wanting to give his father space and wanting to reach out. “Isn’t that – didn’t that Mundus live there?”

Dante and Vergil’s heads simultaneously snap towards Nero. “How did you hear about him?” Dante asks, just a second before Vergil could ask the same question.

“Trish told me years ago. I had asked her about that picture on your desk, and one thing led to another…” Nero has the look of someone who senses he might be in trouble but has no idea why. “I thought you killed him.”

“I did. It was never going to be a permanent thing, I knew that, but this is too soon.” He blows out a breath. He’s getting ahead of himself. They don’t know for certain that it’s Mundus. “If the reports are true, I’m going to have to go over there and take a look to make sure.”

“We will.”

Dante swivels his gaze now to Vergil. “That’s not-”

“Something to discuss right now. But I am going if you are.”

Dante clenches his jaw. _Damn it, that’s a bad idea._ “If we go, it’s just to do recon and see if it is him. If it isn’t, great. If it is, we’ll need to regroup and figure out what to do.”

“What’s there to decide?” Nero argues. “If he’s back, kill him again.”

“Not that simple. A lot will depend on what shape he’s in and how much help he’s gathered.”

“No to mention,” Vergil adds, “what condition the island is in. It was destroyed, but if he poured his power into it, the island may have returned to some semblance of its former state.”

Dante pinches the bridge of his nose. “Not much point in trying to hash out the details now. Won’t know anything until we get there.” He’s still not happy about it being _we_ but he and Vergil can have that argument later. “Just gotta hang tight until then.”

Nero crosses his arms, as equally unhappy about the prospect of sitting and waiting around. “Well, if he is trying to come back, you don’t have to fight him alone this time. You’ve got Dad, and I’ll help, too-”

“ _Absolutely not.”_ The sheer vehemence and rage in Vergil’s words are enough to make Nero take a step back in shock.

Even Dante’s taken aback, though he’s not surprised. The moment the words left Nero’s mouth, Dante had known this conversation was doomed. “Nero, it’s just-”

“Why the hell not?” Nero fires back at his father. “The three of us could take him down in no time!”

“I don’t want you anywhere near him.” Vergil’s stiff as a board, jaw clenched so hard Dante wonders how his teeth aren’t cracking. “Dante and I are more than capable of handling him on our own.”

Dante tries to steer things back with, “Correction, _I’m_ more than-”

“But what if he’s stronger than he was last time?” Nero argues, ignoring Dante.

Vergil’s tone is harsh and commanding as he snaps, “It doesn’t matter if he is or not, you are not coming. This is not up for debate.”

“Like hell it isn’t! I can hold my own, you’ve seen that! I’m not a damn kid!”

Dante grimaces as the argument escalates. _Whatever happens, don’t drag me into this. Please don’t drag me into this…_

Nero whirls on Dante. “This is ridiculous! Would you knock some damn sense into him?!”

_Shit._ Dante pointedly doesn’t look at Vergil. He already feels the glare and he knows that his eyes are saying what he won’t with words: _don’t you dare_. Dante lets out a long, hard sigh as he hesitantly glances at Nero. “You know giving your old man a hard time is my favorite hobby. But not with this, Nero. I can’t.” _He will_ actually _kill me if I sided against him._ “Even if I wanted to, it is not an argument I would win, and it’s not an argument you’re going to win.”

Vergil rises from the table, anger rolling off him in waves. Dante has never seen him like this, and it’s taking everything he has not to recoil from it. “I told you, Nero. This isn’t a debate. You are not going. If I have to shove you into a rift and keep you there until it’s done I will, but you are not going anywhere near that island and that’s final.”

“Oh, so you want to play father now, is that what this is?” Nero snarls, lip curled. “After twenty-three fucking years, you think you can just up and tell me what to do?”

“In this specific case, yes. You don’t have to like it, Nero, or agree with it. And if you want to hate me for it, you can. But I am not changing my position on this. You are not coming.”

“Fuck you!” Nero yells as he slams his hands on the table. For a moment, it almost looks like he’s about to lunge for his father.

Kyrie grabs his elbow in a desperate attempt to avert the incoming explosion. “Nero…”

Her touch does the trick. Nero deflates, but only the slightest bit. He grits his teeth before he pivots on his heel and storms out of the dining room.

Kyrie watches him leave, and then she aims a look at Vergil. “I hope this is worth it,” she murmurs before she hurries after Nero.

The front door slams open and then shut, leaving Dante and Vergil in tense silence. Dante slides a sideways glance at his brother. “Not the best way you could have handled that.”

Vergil grabs the back of the chair he was sitting on. “You’re not actually suggesting that I should have let him come?”

“No. I get why you don’t want him coming. But _he_ doesn’t.” Dante crosses his arms, readying himself for a fight. Vergil already had picked one with his son, and he has no issue going a row with Dante. “He’s going to come up with his own reasons. And they’re going to be wrong, but they’ll hurt him all the same. This is going to come and bite you in the ass.”

“I didn’t ask for your advice.”

Dante levels a glare at him. “I’m talking from experience. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

“This is my problem to handle. If I want your perspective, I will ask for it.” He straightens. “This also isn’t up for debate, Dante.”

Dante throws his hands up in the air in defeat. “Have it your way.” He knows this is going to blow up in Vergil’s face, but he can’t interfere in this particular issue. His brother will have to learn the hard way. “Just wait out in the van and I’ll let you know when I hear from Trish. If Nero sees you right now there’ll be another fight.”

Vergil nods, pushing his chair in before walking out of the dining room and towards the door to the garage. He pauses as he reaches for the handle. “You’ve really told him nothing about that time?”

“No. I don’t think Trish did either. It’s all you, brother.”

Vergil says nothing as he opens the door and disappears inside the garage.

Dante leans back against the wall. Alone, he allows himself a moment of weakness. He holds his face in his hands, fingers digging into his scalp as he beats back the worry and fear clawing up his throat. _Why can’t the peace ever last?_


	6. The Long, Dark Shadow - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The brothers return to Mallet Island. Or what's left of it, anyway.

Two months. It had taken just two months for Vergil to make Nero hate him. He wryly notes that everyone likely had expected him to do it much sooner. Two months is almost downright impressive.

Vergil sighs as he leans back against the couch, eyes trained on the ceiling. Now that the anger has subsided, guilt begins to set in. He had overreacted and completely flown off the handle. He should have been calmer. _But would Nero have reacted better if I had?_ he wonders. His son would have dug in his heels just as much. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered, then. It might have wound up the same way. But at least he wouldn’t feel like such an ass.

The moment Dante had mentioned Mallet Island, all those old nightmares and pain had come rushing back. That monster had taken everything from him. Mundus would love nothing more than to see Vergil suffer more, and what better way than through Nero? The scene plays out in his mind: Vergil beaten, unable to do anything as Mundus rips Nero away, his darkness consuming him and stripping away everything that makes Nero, instead leaving a husk of a man clad in armor with a vacant expression in his eyes…

Vergil’s fingers dig so hard into the arm of the couch his nails puncture the leather. He forces out a breath, then inhales deeply. _I won’t let it happen. I_ can’t _let it happen._ He may have poorly handled his argument with Nero, but his decision had been the right one. On that he will not budge. He will endure Nero’s anger and hatred. So long as Nero never goes anywhere near Mundus, he can live with the rest.

The van door swings open. Vergil forcibly removes his hand from the armrest, looking over to see Dante step inside. “And?”

“Demons have been spotted on the island.” Dante’s face is grim. “No sign of Mundus, at least. But we can’t risk it.”

“Then we must make haste.” Vergil rises. His knees wobble just the slightest bit, but he forces himself to be still and stand straight. “The sooner this is dealt with the better.”

“Vergil.” Dante doesn’t move or make any indication of leaving. “I can handle this solo. It wouldn’t be the first time. There’s no reason you need to do this.”

“There are reasons.” To see Dante this concerned and, dare he say, protective almost unnerves Vergil. A part of him wants to take offense and snap at him. He doesn’t need his protection. But he’s already pissed off one family member tonight, so he shouldn’t go and anger the only one who isn’t entirely done with him. “I need to face this. I need to go back as myself and, if he is there, confront him.”

“Confronting him isn’t going to make the past disappear. It won’t make it better.”

“But it’ll give me the chance to end it on my terms.” Vergil reaches for Yamato and holds it tightly. “If nothing else, I want to see the place with my own eyes.”

“There’s not much left. It went kaboom with extreme prejudice. Honestly, I’m surprised there’s demons even hanging around on whatever is left of it.” He pauses. “I’m surprised there _is_ anything left of it, now that I’m thinkin’ about it.”

“I still need to see it.”

Dante sighs, long and tired. “All right, all right. But,” He points a finger at him. “I’m taking point and if shit goes really south, you need to get out of there. Nero shouldn’t lose both of us to this.”

Vergil almost wants to argue that Nero would be better off with Dante in his life and not him, but he refrains. Now is not the time for that argument. Instead, he just nods. “We’re flying there, I take it?”

“It’ll be faster. And hey, I doubt he’d see that coming.” Dante chuckles. “I found Nico and told her we’re going. So let’s move before Nero gets back.”

* * *

Even with how fast they can fly, it takes almost two hours for the brothers to reach Mallet Island. A long flight means too much time to think. Vergil spends enough time in his head as is, but the long stretch of flight leaves little in the way of distraction. His thoughts spiral with anxiety and dread. On the outside, he appears calm and ready (or so he hopes). But on the inside he’s terrified of possibly facing Mundus. As that terror tries to eat away at his courage, he forces it back with the few assurances he has: _I have the Yamato. I am in top form. I have abilities and knowledge that I did not have back then._ There’s another comforting thought that he hates giving voice to, but regardless it whispers in the back of his mind: _I’m not alone._ His brother had stopped Mundus once, and he’s stronger than he had been back then, too. Together, they stand a much better chance of stopping him.

What he struggles to reassure himself of is his relationship with Nero. That’s not so easily fixed. He doubts he’ll be able to apologize his way out of this one. There’s an obvious answer, but that terrifies him almost as much as what he’s about to do. _If I told him everything, would that really solve matters? Would he not still be angry? Would he not still resent me for forcing him out of this?_ He goes to grab at his pendant, but it’s not around his neck in his sin devil form. _Or am I just thinking these things to justify not telling him?_ He honestly doesn’t know. What he does know that Dante had a point: as long as Nero doesn’t know the reasons behind Vergil’s refusal to let him come, this rift will not mend. Nero has no idea what Mundus had done to him, and that's entirely Vergil's fault. Now he's paying for it.

In the distance, the island appears. Dante gestures to him, and the brothers sharply drop in altitude to fly closer to the surface of the ocean. It’ll be harder for anyone on the island to see them coming that way. Vergil’s not typically a fan of the surprise attack but where Mundus is concerned, one can’t be too careful.

As they draw nearer, the state of the island becomes visible. Where the grand castle once stood, there’s little left now but an enormous crater, filled with blown out chunks of the outer wall and random bits of the castle interior. Vergil’s almost certain he sees a piece of a ship’s mast in the water. There are more sections of the wall laying in the water, forming almost mini islands around the actual island.

The brothers land at the edge of the crater and immediately draw their swords. “Not sure where any demons could be,” Dante comments as they walk down the slope. “Hiding in the ruins somewhere?”

It’s simultaneously satisfying but unnerving seeing the island like this. It had been his “home” for almost a decade. A part of Vergil wishes he could walk through those old corridors again, to face them as his true self. But another part is glad just seeing the place in ruins.

The island is quiet; Vergil can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. _If he’s here, would he show himself?_ Ordinarily he wouldn’t even question that but considering Mundus hadn’t tried to make himself known this time, it’s possible he could be trying to hide.

They scan the ruins, looking for some sign of activity. Nothing stirs. The brothers wait it out for several long minutes, the wind, ocean, and their collective breathing the only sounds they hear. Vergil starts to wonder if the reports were wrong.

“Oh to hell with this.” Dante pulls out one of his guns and fires it three times, the gunshots ringing out and vibrating off the crater walls.

Vergil rubs his ear, glowering at Dante. “A little warning next time.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

What promises to be a dumb argument gets cut short by a number of shrieks coming from the ruins. Five Empusas skitter out from the cracks and crevices, their mandibles furiously clicking together as they beeline towards the brothers. But their charge doesn’t last long. They’re not even halfway across the crater before Vergil quick-steps towards them and lashes out with the Yamato. Dante fires his pistols in rapid succession. Between the two attacks, the Empusas are annihilated quickly.

“Scavengers,” Vergil murmurs. “Not Mundus’s usual type.”

“None of this seems like Mundus.” Dante rolls his shoulders before shouting, “Hey, Mundus! You wanna show your ugly mug?”

He’s met with silence. Dante turns to Vergil. “You don’t think he’s hiding?”

Now that Vergil’s had time to think about it, he answers, “Even if he were here and just too weak to face us, he wouldn’t let our presence here go unanswered. He’d have protection, something of a higher caliber than Empusas.” _Unless that’s what he wants us to think._

“Also, can’t see him chilling out in a pile of rubble.” Dante shoulders his sword. “I’m starting to think this is going to be an underwhelming recon.”

“But reconnaissance we must do all the same. We must make sure.” Vergil starts towards the ruins where the Empusas came from. He can’t rest easy until he knows beyond a doubt.

The brothers trawl through the ruins as best they can, stepping around crumbling structures and pitfalls. It’s hard to figure out where to go, exactly. Eventually they decide to try and go down, since there clearly isn’t anything on the surface. It takes them almost an hour to find their way to the bottom, and only because Dante finds a rubble-filled hole that he _makes_ a way down by repeatedly slamming his sword into the debris until it gives way.

Now of course, Dante didn’t bother to _move_ before he does this, so he drops like an undignified lump to the bottom. Vergil hears him groan from down below. “Nailed it,” Dante calls up.

Vergil jumps down, landing far more gracefully next to Dante. “You nailed being an absolute buffoon.”

“I am unappreciated in my time.”

The two find themselves staring down the remains of a hallway. Dante frowns. “I… think I got chased down this way. By… ack, that spider. What’s his face...”

“Phantom.” The repulsive, stubborn demon that Vergil had despised. Phantom had only ever concerned himself with feeding and little else. Not terribly smart, but he had made for a good watch dog – er, spider.

“Looks like this is the only way through,” Dante notes as he strolls down the hallway. “This is gonna be a quick search if this is all-”

The moment the brothers make it halfway down the hall, a faint presence invades their senses. A chilling dread settles in Vergil’s stomach. It’s weak, almost non-existent, but he knows all too well what it is. “He’s here.”

Dante nods, frown in place and sword back in hand. He moves to the front, keeping himself firmly between Vergil and whatever lies ahead.

The hallway abruptly ends at a cave-in. Off to the right is a smashed in door that leads into a collapsed chamber. Dante pauses outside the room and glances at Vergil. “You sure about this?”

“I didn’t come all this way to retreat now.”

“Okay. Remember what we agreed on.”

Vergil doubts he’ll honor that agreement, but he nods along. Dante nods back before he ducks inside the room, Vergil hot on his heels. On the other side of the room are hunks of broken stone. Mundus’s marble body still lies in ruin, but the broken pieces still contain something of him. Though to call this flickering presence Mundus is like calling a barely burning ember a fire.

_“…how unexpected.”_ Mundus’s voice resonates from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Vergil’s grip on Yamato tightens. _He is inconsequential. He doesn’t even have a physical presence. There’s nothing to fear._ But even as he tries to assure himself of Mundus’s weakened state, those old memories and trauma rear their dual ugly heads. He swallows thickly.

“Well, well, well…” Dante smirks and shakes his head. “You really don’t learn, do you?”

The brothers approach until they’re just a few meters away from Mundus’s broken body. Dante stands a few inches closer to it than Vergil, still trying to protect him from this specter.

“ _I am eternal. Your father could not contain me forever, nor can you destroy me forever.”_

“When a dog’s kicked a couple times, he learns to stay away from the person doing the kicking.” Dante laughs. “My point is… well, you’re dumber than a dog.”

“ _A dog bites. And one day, the person doing the kicking will get bitten…”_ Although he has no physical presence, Vergil feels like Mundus is looking straight at him. “ _More unexpected still is you, my old servant. Here you stand, having returned to the place you belong.”_

Vergil’s lip curls. “Trying to prey on my past and unnerve me… you really have sunk low. I’d almost pity you if it weren’t so satisfying to see you in such a state.” Especially since Mundus’s handiwork had left Vergil in a similar state. Tit for tat and all that. “This is all rather careless of you, letting your minions roam about in plain sight.”

“Did you really think Trish and I didn’t have eyes on this place?” Dante adds.

“ _No number of eyes or ears will prevent my ascension. One day, Trish will return to me. Whatever ‘bond’ you think you have, it is nothing compared to-”_

“Ah, shut up.” To make a statement more than anything, Dante grabs Ivory and unloads a few rounds into the pile of marble. “Trish likes me better than you. She gets free pizza from me. You can’t top that.”

Vergil rubs his ear, shooting a glare at his brother for attempting to give him tinnitus again. “Your desperation is showing, Mundus.”

“ _So is your fear. You cannot hide it from me. You reek of it.”_ The presence intensifies, enough to make the brothers draw their swords in response. “ _Your mind is not free from me. It never will be.”_

Then Vergil feels it: Mundus reaching in, trying to read his thoughts. But Mundus is not what he used to be, and neither is Vergil. “Get. Out.” Vergil grits his teeth and forces Mundus from his mind. There’s an agitated rumble that vibrates in the air. _It felt good to do that,_ he thinks with a small smirk.

“ _You have grown stronger. What a pity that you waste that power chasing after weak prey, fighting alongside the brother who once killed you without second thought. I gave you purpose, a higher calling to answer to. Now what do you have?”_

Vergil gives Mundus a bit of credit, he’s aiming his punches at that right spots. But whereas that might have worked once upon a time, it doesn’t now. “All I got from you was years’ worth of nightmares. Serving you was no privilege, nor was it a purpose I ever wanted. I’d rather spend the rest of my years aimless than endure one minute serving your so-called purpose.” He shakes his head. “I have plenty without you. Spare yourself from any further delusion that you actually mean something to me.”

“ _A meaningless job, no purpose and wasted potential? That is what you consider ‘plenty’?”_ There’s a heavy pause, a moment of unnerving silence before he adds, “ _Or perhaps it’s that boy of yours? Your son?”_

That punch hits just right, knocking the air out of Vergil’s lungs. Mundus hadn’t been in his mind for long, but he retrieved all that he needed. “You-”

Even Dante reacts outwardly, eyes widening in alarm as he readies his sword to strike. “Okay, you had your fun, Mundus. Now it’s time to shut up.”

“ _I am eternal. You cannot protect that boy from me. Someday-”_

_No._ Rage punches through the fear, and Vergil moves. He’s done Judgment Cut more times than he can count. But never has he done it so quickly or with such ferocity as he does just then, slicing through and around the marble corpse. From the corner of his eye, he sees Dante dash backwards to get out of the way. With a stone-cold stare, Vergil carefully slides the sword back into its sheath. The air explodes from the force of countless cuts, and the marble chunks shatter. Mundus’s scream fills the room.

“That’s but a small taste of what will happen if you ever try to lay a hand on him.” He straightens. “I suggest you listen to Dante and stay in whatever hole you crawled out of.”

There’s a faint pulse. Mundus tries to respond, but Vergil’s attack had drained him of what little power he had.

Vergil smirks, satisfied with the lack of response. Mundus can stew on that for the next few decades. He turns to Dante. “We’re done here.”

“Couldn’t agree more. I think we got our point across.” Dante snorts before turning and following Vergil out of the room.

It’s a quiet trip back to the surface. Vergil feels a dizzying array of emotions, too many to pin down with words. He’s not the type to drink, but honestly, he could go for a stiff one right about now. When they make it back up top, he runs a hand through his hair. “Let’s be off. It’s a long flight back.”

“Yeah. Though I don’t know what kind of reception we’ll be gettin’.”

“An angry one.” It’s another battle he’ll have to fight. A much harder one, too, for swords aren’t going to work. “And I know what you’re going to say,” he adds, turning to his brother. “I’m not ignoring the issue.” Coming here, seeing the island like it is, finding Mundus… it might not have been a grand battle, but he did get some closure. He had said his piece and got the assurance he had needed. Mundus is powerless, the island is destroyed, and those days as Nelo Angelo are long behind him. If tonight has shown him anything, it’s that he’s still too wrapped up in the memory of this place. He needs to let it go and move forward. “…I must tell him about what happened to me. That much is clear now.”

“But are you actually _going_ to?”

As much as Vergil wants to backhand him for that question, he knows it’s not an entirely unfair one. “Yes.” He clutches at his pendant, letting the familiar weight settle him. “Mundus has taken enough from me. I’m not going to allow his ghost to rob me of what I have now.”

“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said all day.” Dante huffs out a laugh, letting his sword vanish. “Let’s go. Someone’s gotta tell Trish and Lady not to cut their vacation short, or we’ll never hear the end of it.”


	7. The Long, Dark Shadow - Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nero learns about a particularly horrifying part of his father's past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: the Sparda boys get their shit together for just long enough to actually communicate. It's a miracle.

It’s below freezing outside, but that’s not preventing Nero from sitting on the porch and brooding. Sure, he can do it inside just as easily, but the cold keeps him grounded. It’s something else to focus on besides the hot anger still simmering inside him.

_What is it gonna take for them to treat me like an equal?_ Nero rests his head on his arms that he’s got crossed atop his knees. _I can keep up. I can handle myself. Maybe I’m not as strong as them but I’m not deadweight. Every time I think I’m getting somewhere with them-_ His fist clenches. What he wouldn’t give for a job to pop up so he can go and take out his anger on some hapless demons. _I need to try and talk Kyrie into letting me put up a punching bag._ Nevermind that he could easily knock one off the chain…

He hears voices coming from inside. He can’t make out the words, but he recognizes Kyrie’s and Nico’s voices. _What are they doing up so late? I thought they-_

Then he hears the unmistakable voices of his uncle and father. Nero lifts his head and turns around. He can’t quite see all of what’s going on inside, but he catches glimpses of Dante and Vergil as they walk around. Kyrie walks by the window, looking a little more relaxed. _I guess it went well._ Nero snorts and turns back around. _Not that it’s any of my concern. They made that perfectly clear,_ he thinks bitterly. He could go inside and hear what happened, but he doesn’t trust himself to not punch his father in the face. _I’ve got nothing to say to them anyway._ He pulls his hood up over his head and stares back out into the night.

But his alone time comes to an end when the backdoor swings open. Nero refuses to look over. If it’s Kyrie or Nico, they’ll make themselves known and get to the point. If it’s-

“Nero.”

\- his father, then he certainly doesn’t want to look. He has half a mind to ignore him, but a little voice in his head reminds him that he’s already being childish. “What?” he responds, tone sharp to make it clear he’s not interested in talking.

“Still angry, I see.”

“Of course I’m still fucking angry!” His outrage at Vergil’s audacity overrides his refusal to look at his father. He levels a glare at him, a mix of anger and disbelief. “What, you think you’d leave for a few hours and everything would be magically fixed when you got back?!”

Vergil shakes his head. “No, not really.” He steps out onto the porch, Yamato in hand as always. “There was little in the way of anything exciting. A few Empusas and little else.”

Nero gives his father a once over. He doesn’t look like he’s been in a fight. Surely if they had fought the demon emperor, he’d look worse for wear. “So, what? A false alarm?”

“…yes. The Empusas were merely scavenging. All the same, it was good to confirm he hasn’t returned in any meaningful way.”

Something about that wording indicates that Vergil isn’t telling the entire truth. Nero wants to call it out, but considering their earlier fight, he suspects it’ll just end the same. Remembering that argument gets his blood boiling all over again. “Yeah. Really sounds like something I could never have handled,” he says in a biting tone.

“It was never an issue of whether or not you could handle it.”

And finally the rage explodes. “Then what is it?!” Nero slams his fist into the floor, cracking the concrete. “What is it that you’re hiding from me?”

Vergil stares at Nero for a long time; the silence is drawn out, to the point of discomfort. If Nero didn’t know better, he’d almost think his father is deliberately trying to unnerve him so he backs off. Finally, Vergil says, “First thing tomorrow morning, we will talk. I’d rather have that conversation with you when you’re calmer. And I need time to think things through.”

“You’re going to tell me?” Just as his rage had begun to really build, the statement trips him up enough that it fizzles out almost as quickly as it started. He’s left surprised and almost disoriented.

“Yes. In the morning,” Vergil reiterates. “For now, I am going to rest. You should as well.” Without further word, he turns and goes back inside, leaving Nero alone again in the cold.

_…I can’t believe it._ Nero shakes his head in disbelief. _I’m finally going to learn what the hell happened to him?_ There’s a rush of anticipation and nerves. He wants to know – _needs_ to know, but he remembers Dante’s warning: it won’t be a happy story. And if it has to do with why Vergil had been so vehemently adamant that Nero not come to Mallet Island…

Nero blows out a breath as he stands up. It’s well past the household’s usual bedtime. With Dante and Vergil back in one piece, there’s no reason to stay up. And the sooner he sleeps, the sooner morning comes. Assuming, of course, he’s going to be able to sleep.

* * *

Surprise surprise, sleep eludes him. Nero spends half the night tossing and turning. His thoughts run through his head at dizzying speeds. He tries to shut them off and sleep, but anticipation keeps him awake. He can’t help but wonder what Vergil is going to tell him. Even though he’s been tossing theories around in his head for months, it doesn’t stop him from turning them over again and again, especially now that he’s so close to learning the truth.

He eventually nods off, but only for a few hours at most. He wakes up with a start, eyes heavy from sleep. His body immediately regrets waking up, but his mind is raring to go. _Might as well get up,_ he thinks as he spies a trickle of light peering through the window. As he shoves off the blankets and gets up, he looks over to make sure Kyrie keeps sleeping. To his relief, she’s out like a light, curled up in an adorable manner under the blankets. He smiles before walking around the bed to gently kiss her head. He leaves her to finish her sleep as he pulls on a shirt and then a sweater. A few quick swipes of his hand through his hair, and he’s good to go.

Waking up so early thrusts him into a stealth scenario. Waking up everyone now would result in a house full of grumpy people (including two boys who need their sleep). He tiptoes down the hall as to not wake the rest of the household. When he reaches the stairs, he pivots over the notorious few squeaky steps. He lands softly at the bottom of the stairwell. His destination is the kitchen to start coffee, but he pauses when he passes by the living room. “…did you not sleep?”

It certainly doesn’t look like Vergil has slept. His father’s in his usual chair, sitting upright and in the same exact outfit he wore last night. He lifts his head, blinking owlishly at Nero. “Mm, no.”

Nero swears softly under his breath before he ducks into the kitchen. “How do you take your coffee?”

“Black.”

“Color me shocked,” Nero says, completely not shocked. At least it makes it simple. Once he dumps enough coffee grounds in, Nero puts the pot on and lets it do its magic. He considers popping back into the living room, but he’s afraid of the awkward silence that will ensue. Getting a conversation rolling with his father is a challenge in ordinary circumstances. Trying to start small talk at five in the morning and on little sleep promises to be a futile effort. So, Nero just stands in the kitchen, watching the coffee pot slowly fill up.

_If he was up all night because of this…_ It’s an unsettling thought. It’s also an indication of just how difficult this is going to be for Vergil, and a pang of guilt hits Nero. He almost, _almost_ considers just calling the whole thing off. _No, we made it this far. No backing out now._

Once the pot is done, Nero pours out two mugs. After he dumps enough sugar and milk into his, he grabs both cups and brings them into the living room. “Here,” he offers, handing Vergil a mug before taking a seat next to him.

“Thank you.” Vergil blows on it, trying to cool it off before he dares to take a sip. “I’m surprised you’re up so early.”

Nero lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Didn’t sleep great. Just kept tossing and turning. Once I woke up, I figured I wasn’t gettin’ back to sleep.” He frowns. “I didn’t think you were gonna be up all damn night. You sure you don’t want to try and get a few hours in?”

Vergil shakes his head. “It’d be pointless. I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”

Nero stares awkwardly at his mug, taking a sip to buy some time to consider what to say. He doesn’t want to push, but he also doesn’t want to sit here awkwardly and hope his father decides to start talking.

He doesn’t, of course. Not at first. And as the silence drags on, Nero begins to fidget. _Don’t make me have to-_

“…it will be twenty-four years in March since everything started.” Vergil takes a long, thoughtful sip from his coffee before he sets it down on the coffee table. “Around the time you were born, or so Dante says.”

“Since what started?”

Vergil leans forward, and Nero’s gaze is transfixed on him, anticipation roiling hot.

“When I came to this island, I was looking for information. What I found here led me to Capulet City, where Dante happened to be. Some events transpired one night.” When he sees Nero’s scowl deepen, he shakes his head. “That’s a story for another time, and it doesn’t directly relate to what I’m going to tell you. I’ll say this: I tried to obtain my father’s power, but it backfired. A number of things went awry. A gate to the underworld was opened in the process. During all of this, Dante and I fought thrice. I trounced him in the first fight, but as the night dragged on, he gained ground. In the end, he managed to come out on top.”

Nero is definitely going to make a point to ask what these “events” were. If need be, he’ll ask Dante. But right now, he needs to focus. “So, Dante beat you in your last fight?”

Vergil nods. “Yes. He triumphed, and I was left badly injured. Since my plan had failed, I decided to go into the underworld. It had been Sparda’s home, and I thought I could still find the power I sought there.”

_So, that’s how he wound up in Hell the first time._ The pieces begin to come together, but Nero still doesn’t quite have the picture still. “You went down there after being beaten that badly?”

“In hindsight, it was a terrible idea. In more ways than one.” And it’s here that Vergil tenses, his hands clasped together tightly. He’s looking at the floor, almost immobile.

Whatever had happened, Nero suspects it has something to do with Mundus. And if his father had gone into Hell… “Is this where Mundus comes in?”

“Yes.” The word is strained. His hands tighten even more, somehow. “I woke up in the underworld, and there he was. I was in his lair and my options were… limited. Despite my state, I took Yamato and I charged, intending to battle him.”

“What? Were you – why didn’t you _run_? At least to get away and hide until you were healed?!”

“I doubt he would have allowed me to. Besides, pride prevented me from doing so. He was my father’s greatest adversary, and I was determined to repeat his victory.” Vergil snorts derisively. “Though I knew, deep down, that I was not winning that battle.”

Nero’s been expecting a story that wouldn’t be easy to hear. He just hadn’t expected it to be the horror story that’s slowly unfolding. “Guess I don’t need to ask how it went.”

“Truth be told, even if I was in top form, I’m not certain if I would have won.” Vergil looks at the Yamato, perched against the couch next to him. “He utterly beat me down until I could barely move. Worse, he broke Yamato during our battle. I lost it when he…”

“So he’s the one who broke it.” That’s another mystery solved. Of course he had always wondered how Yamato broke, but the realization that his family’s number one enemy had nearly destroyed it makes his stomach turn. The poor sword had been in that state for eighteen years, too. “Did he… take it from you?”

“No. I dropped it. I was too weak to hold onto it anymore. It fell into the darkness. I was certain I had lost it for good.”

It’s a horror story that’s breaking his heart. He knows how much that sword means to his father, and he can’t imagine what it must have been like to lose it like that. Okay, yeah, he had the sword taken from him as well, but he had never been especially attached to it. His grandfather had given the Yamato to Vergil, and it’s probably the only thing of Sparda’s that Vergil has. To lose it in a battle to the death, against Mundus no less-

_Wait._ “But if he beat you, why didn’t he kill you?”

Vergil laughs. It’s not a humorous one. It’s pained and sardonic, unsettling enough to make Nero almost squirm. “That would have been the kind thing to do. Besides, Mundus isn’t the type to waste.”

Nero repeats the last word in disbelief. “What do you mean?” he asks, almost afraid to know the answer.

“A son of Sparda landed in his lap. He saw an opportunity and he seized it. Why kill when you can use it instead?” Vergil takes Yamato in hand, his grip white-knuckled. “But a servant with a will and mind of his own is a liability. To ensure complete cooperation, he… stripped me of everything. My memories, my personality, my thoughts… by the time he was finished, I was just an empty husk in armor. He even took my name from me. He gave me another one, more ‘fitting’ for my new role.” He looks back at Nero again, his expression hard and unreadable. “Nelo Angelo.”

And there it is, the last piece of the puzzle Nero’s been missing. Now it’s all come together, and he finally sees the entire picture in all its horrifying completion. He had known Mundus had done something horrible, but this… this is nothing anywhere near what he expected. He tries to speak, but his throat’s gone so dry that he has to swallow a couple times before he can form any words. “Angelo. Like those…?”

“Yes. From what I understand, Nelo Angelo served as a sort of blueprint. The Order you once served even built their own Angelo knights based on it. They found the Yamato, after all. I wouldn’t put it past them to have found more from whatever was left of me.”

Nero feels like he might actually hurl. God, how many times had he cracked jokes about those things? Not just in Fortuna, but even in Redgrave he had…

_“Nice, getting the band back together, huh?” Nero points at the Angelo knights gathered before them._

_But V, he isn’t laughing. He almost looks like he’s in pain. His tone matches the murderous look on his face, “What evil lurks… I must destroy.”_

_“I thought that was the plan all long.”_

Just an overreaction, or so he had thought. But now it makes a sickening amount of sense. So much does, enough so that Nero’s head spins. He hastily sets down his mug and holds his head in one hand, willing himself to settle before he actually does vomit. “…how long were you…”

“Almost a decade. That’s when Mundus decided to lure Dante out and attempt to dispatch the only significant threat left to him.” Vergil’s voice softens as he adds, “He and I clashed a few times. Some small part of me recognized him. I… don’t know if he knew who I was until our last fight. And by that point… all he could do was put me out of my misery.”

Ten years of being a mindless slave. Ten years of not knowing what had happened to Vergil, only for Dante to find Vergil like that and have to kill him… His father and uncle had suffered a great deal in that time. But that does answer another question. “And that’s why he went with you into the underworld,” Nero says, lifting his head. “Because the last time you went down there alone…”

“I suspect so.” Vergil glances in the direction of the garage, where Dante’s currently snoozing away. “He’s made it clear that he doesn’t intend to repeat past mistakes. Apparently, that ranks as one of his worst.”

“Why? Did he just let you go?”

“No, he tried to stop me. His effort was met with a cut to the hand.” Vergil slightly lifts the Yamato to clarify. “He feels like he hadn’t done enough to stop me, or that he should have gone after me.” He shakes his head. “It isn’t his guilt to bear, but I’ve given up trying to convince him otherwise. If you want to know more regarding that, you’ll need to ask him.”

And he will ask, but later. He wants to keep this line of conversation going, but honestly, he’s at a loss of words. What even does he say to all of this? That he’s sorry? That it sounds like it sucked? Does he thank him for telling him? No, that would be tone deaf. They’re all just empty words. Besides, they don’t _do_ sorry or thanks in this family (except when they do, but they won’t admit it). So he opts to just say, “You’re making it hard for me to be mad.”

“Mm.” There’s the barest hint of a smile. “That’s certainly a switch.”

“Don’t get used to it. You’re still too good at pissing me off.” The words’ sting is lessened by the soft tone of his voice. “But… I get it. Still not happy about it, but I get why you didn’t want me coming.”

“I’ll take not happy over anger and hatred.”

“Hatred?” Nero’s head snaps towards his father. “Dad, if I didn’t hate you after popping my arm off, wrecking my uncle, wrecking a city, killing a lot of people, quoting a lot of old poetry at me, and kicking my ass a couple of times, you telling me ‘no’ isn’t gonna do it.” He can’t believe he would even – actually no, he can believe it. But it still pains him all the same.

“…I see.” There’s another brief smile, warmer than the last one, before it unexpectedly turns into a smirk. “I didn’t realize my quoting Blake ranked as one of my worst offenses.”

“Well it almost made my brain melt so I’d consider it pretty bad.”

“Taste isn’t hereditary, clearly.”

“Bite me.” Nero snorts.

This is better, he thinks. It’s lightening the mood and got a smile out of Vergil. This might not be the last time they talk about this, but for now, he’s okay with letting it end here. His father’s gone down enough of trauma memory lane for today. “Come on, you should try and sleep a bit. You barely touched your coffee anyway.”

“I don’t think sleep is on the schedule.” Vergil takes a sip from his cup. “I don’t mind. I prefer early morning, anyway.”

To be fair, Nero’s sure he’s not going back to sleep either. They can’t do too much right now, with the rest of the household sleeping. A thought comes to him when he glances at Yamato. “A little exercise would help wake us up. Better than coffee, at any rate.”

Vergil raises a brow. “In the backyard, at this time?”

“There’s a spot not far from here. It’s in a patch of woods and no one lives nearby, so we won’t wake anyone.” Nero smirks, and because he can’t help but be a punk and tack on, “Unless you’re just using that as an excuse to back out.”

There’s a twitch of his lips, then Vergil calmly sets down his cup and grabs Yamato. “That’s the best taunt you could come up with?”

“Shut up, it’s barely past five in the morning.” Nero gets up and stretches before he walks over to grab Red Queen from its perch against the wall. “Brain isn’t at its wittiest right now.”

“Will that also be your excuse when I beat you?”

As Nero swings the sword onto his back, he shoots a challenging look at Vergil. “Won’t need one ‘cause you’re going down hard. Then you’re gonna feel like a chump when you lose to a guy who’s half-awake.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Father and son exchange smirks before Nero leads them out the backdoor.

Nero hopes this will help take Vergil’s mind off the nightmares he just revisited. As hard as it had been to hear about them, he’s still glad Vergil told him. Now he knows (most of) what happened on that day. He’ll have to have a separate conversation with Dante about a few things, now that his uncle’s no longer be forbidden from speaking to him about it. But this is a good start. Finally he’s beginning to understand his heritage and those he inherited it from. He still has a lot to learn, but for the first time since he learned about his family, he doesn’t feel so lost.

For now, he’s just going to have a spar with his father in the hopes he can take his mind off things. It’s all he can do. But, if the poorly hidden smile on Vergil’s face is any indication, it’s more than enough.


	8. Hurricane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dante gets a visitor who's a tad upset with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't forgotten about these one-shots, I swear. I just didn't have any ideas until recently, and that's primarily because I finally watched the DMC anime. I've been meaning to ever since I played DMC5 since they seem to be incorporating bits of the anime into the main fold.
> 
> Honestly, I'd give it a C- overall, but it did lend to me some new ideas. And of course, I had to start with one of the more memorable characters from the show.

She’s given him a week. _Why_ Morrison insisted on her waiting that long, Patty doesn’t know. She very nearly hadn’t, but he had given her That Look, the one that means he’s being very super serious and he’s going to be more than just a tad annoyed if she doesn’t listen. And because she’s an _adult now, thank you,_ she bites her tongue and waits it out.

Seven days later on the dot, Patty marches right up to Devil May Cry, intent on giving Dante a piece of her mind. She doesn’t bother to tell Morrison because she knows he’ll try to talk her into waiting longer. Which is so not happening. Dante missed her birthday party! And he even hung up on her! The _nerve_ of that man…

Patty rolls her shoulders, psyching herself up before she summons the angriest look she can manage. _He is so going to get it. I’m not going easy on him this time, either._ With more force than is strictly necessary, Patty slams open the door. “THERE you are!”

As expected, he’s sitting at his desk, some dumb magazine in hand and looking like he’s ready to nap. Dante sighs. “Look, I can explain-”

_Oh no you don’t._ “Of coooourse you had to get a job on my birthday!” Patty kicks the door shut behind her as she marches up to Dante’s desk, hands on her hips and ready to rant. She’s been reciting it in her head the whole way here, and he’s not going to interrupt. “And rather than skip it like half of the jobs you get offered, you took it! You picked a dumb job over my birthday party! And not just any birthday! A girl only turns eighteen once!”

“That’s kind of rich coming from the kid who used to give me lip for only getting one job a week-”

“NOT the point!” She stomps her foot. “Why didn’t you turn down this one?!”

Dante pinches the bridge of his nose. “One, I wasn’t gonna go anyway-”

Patty’s anger turns to genuine hurt. It’s one thing to have something of a valid excuse not to come, but to turn her down flat like that... “You weren’t?” It hits like a weight dropping into her stomach. Dante hasn’t been this much of a jerk to her in _years._ She thought those days were past-

“I was gonna take you out when I got back from said dumb job. Get some strawberry sundaes. Hell, I might have even let you eat some of mine.” Dante half-smiles. “Nothing against you. Just… not a fan of that kind of thing.”

_Oh._ Well… that’s kind of nice. “You don’t like birthday parties?”

“I don’t like being in a situation where I have to pretend that I’m normal.”

For most, that would not have made much sense. But Patty’s known Dante for a decade now. And despite her age, she’s wiser than she lets on. She nods, understanding where he’s coming from. Dante and normal don’t mix well. She’s seen it firsthand. And looking back, maybe she should have realized that inviting a middle-aged man to a birthday party that was primarily made up of teenagers and a smattering of their parents might not have gone over real well…

“Two… it was not a job I could pass up.” He cuts her off just as she opens her mouth, “And not just because the utilities got shut off again.”

Patty huffs. Ugh, so much for her rant. “Okay, fine. But why did it take you like, six freaking months to come back?” As if him skipping out on her birthday without warning hadn’t been bad enough, he then completely vanished for half a year. _Rude._

Dante rubs the back of his head. “…I got stuck in the underworld.”

She gives him a deadpan look. “ _Again?_ How did you do that a _second_ time?”

“…Extenuating circumstances.”

“If you’re trying to use big words to confuse me, then screw you because I know what extenuating means.” Patty sticks her tongue out. _Joke’s on you, Dante. I nailed the vocab section on my prep tests_. “I’m surprised _you_ even know a word that big.”

Dante shakes his head with a smile. “I’m full of surprises.”

“You’re full of something, all right.” She snorts. And they’re veering off subject. If she can’t get her tirade in, she’s at least going to get some answers. But as she formulates what to say next, movement from the stairs to the left distracts her. She looks over to see what’s moving around.

Morrison had told her something big had come up on the job, but she hadn’t been expecting _this_ kind of big. “Is that…?”

Dante turns around in the direction she’s staring. “Patty, meet extenuating circumstances.”

Patty’s never seen him, and she’s certainly never met him, but she knows who it is immediately. Even someone who had never heard of Vergil would at least be able to put two and two together. They’re certainly identical twins, though Vergil’s apparel and overall manner is opposite Dante’s. She can tell that from just a glance at the man, who’s currently regarding her with a curious but guarded stare. “Oh my god,” she blurts out before she thinks to stop herself. “But I thought he was-” She spins around on Dante. “ _You_ said-”

“I did not lie,” he cuts her off, finger pointed at her. “Because I honestly thought he was dead.”

Patty straightens up, looking back over at Vergil. “Wait wait wait, that means-!” Her eyes brighten. “That makes you hot nephew Nero’s dad!” But just as she says that, something occurs to her. She immediately narrows her eyes and glances suspiciously at Dante. “…you’re not hiding him from Nero, are you? Because if you are that is **_SO_** unbelievably shitty-”

“They’ve met! Nero knows everything now.” Dante throws his hands in the air. “Kind of hard to put that cat back in the bag.”

“Well you kept it in the bag for five _freaking_ years! Can you blame me for thinking you were still hiding things from him?!” Rather than let Dante answer, she whirls towards Vergil. “Did you know he didn’t tell Nero about you guys being his family?”

Vergil’s looking borderline overwhelmed (alas, Patty has no idea just how impressive it is that she’s managed to do that in less than five minutes of meeting him). “I… yes, I’ve heard…”

“Unbelievable, right? And lemme guess, the only reason he finally told him was because you came back.”

The resonating silence from the twins is all the answer she needs. Patty smirks in triumph. “Knew it. That’s so typical of you, Dante.” And she sees from the corner of her eye that Dante’s going to come back with some dumb remark, so she whips out her hand and places it against his face to shush him. “Anyway, I’m Patty Lowell. Former orphan, poker master, high school graduate and the decade-long caretaker of this place, because Dante can’t clean up to save his life.”

Vergil aims a disbelieving stare at his brother. “You had a _child_ cleaning up in here?”

Dante shoves Patty’s hand away. “She did it on her own.”

“Because it was filthy in here and I wasn’t going to sit in your squalor!” And speaking of… “Though it’s actually looking okay in here for once.”

“Morrison had the place cleaned.” Dante sighs in aggravation as he sits up straighter in his chair. “If you’re done-”

“Nope.” Patty nods approvingly as she takes a better look around the place. “Smells waaay better, too. Though you’ll get it all filthy again in no time.”

“ _That’s_ not going to happen.” Vergil gives Dante a steely-eyed look. “I’m not going to sit in squalor, either.”

“You know how to clean?” Patty asks.

“Better than my brother here, evidently.”

“Oh my goooood I like you already.” _Finally_ someone else will keep up with the place.

Vergil merely blinks at her, slightly wide-eyed and looking uneasily at his brother for help.

“Patty, did you only come here to yell at me?” Dante gripes. “If so, great, you said your piece. Now scoot.”

She glances back and forth between the brothers. Ordinarily she’d put her foot down and talk/yell at Dante more. But with Vergil here and Dante having gotten back after being away for half a year… well, even Patty is more tactful than that. Now isn’t the time to press. “Only if you take me out like you were gonna for my birthday. Just because it passed doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.”

Dante chuckles tiredly. “All right, all right. Just give me a week or so. I’m a little strapped for cash at the moment.”

“Deal.” She’ll get the deets out of him then. Patty all but skips to the door, waving good-bye over her shoulder. “Nice meeting you, Vergil! See you guys later!” With a grin and a wink, she’s out the door, leaving a bewildered silence in her wake.

After a beat, Vergil asks, “What the hell was that?”

Dante sighs and scrubs his face with his hands. “A living, breathing, blonde hurricane.”


	9. A Somewhat Normal(ish) Christmas Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sparda boys spend their first Christmas together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wouldn't be a Sparda gathering without one of the boys being emotionally constipated. Part 2 will be up in a few days!

In a rather cold garage in Fortuna sits the vehicle a certain demon hunter affectionately calls the Devil May Cry-mobile. And as luck would have it, that same demon hunter is currently in that vehicle. He stretches out his back and arms before flopping onto the couch with a perfect lack of grace. “Phew. What a day,” Dante says as he looks to his side.

On an air mattress tucked back between Nico’s workbench and the jukebox lies Vergil, looking just a tad harried. “I have never been asked so many questions in such a short time frame.”

Dante chuckles. “The kids did it to me last year. This year they had new prey.”

Vergil shoots him a side-eyed glare before continuing, “Do they ever stop talking?”

“When there’s a movie on.” Dante rolls his eyes. “C’mon. Julio’s not bad. Kyle’s… okay he’s a lot, but that’s when I sic him on Nico and let her deal with him. We all just pass him around until he finally gets bored or tuckers out.”

“And we have several days of this yet.” Vergil rubs a hand over his face and blows a long sigh through his nose. “I don’t think this was a wise idea.”

Why is Dante not surprised? “You’re gonna be fine once you’re used to it. This is how you get to that point.” He gestures at the house. “Besides, it’s not like we had much choice.”

“No. No, we did not.”

* * *

Early last week, the Christmas card had arrived. It was innocuous in appearance, but Dante knew better. He knew what was in that card.

He grabbed it while tossing the rest of the mail in the trash bin as he ducked back inside his office. Though generally more resistant to the cold than humans are, the cold snap that plagued the city had even him keeping indoors as much as possible. _Good thing the electricity’s paid for this month,_ he thought as he slunk back towards his chair. It would absolutely have sucked if they lost heat in this weather.

That, and he would never hear the end of it from Vergil. Which, speaking of… “Hey, Vergil!” he called out to his brother as he ripped open the envelope. “Come down here for a sec.”

He heard Vergil demanding to know why, but he ignored it. He would come down eventually. As he waited, he read over the card from Nero and Kyrie. Like last year, most of it was written in Kyrie’s hand:

_Happy Holidays Dante and Vergil!_

_Hope you’re both settling back into Devil May Cry! It must seem so strange to have come back to the holiday season when it was barely summer the last time you were up here. You’ll have to have extra fun next summer to make up for it!_

_We’d love to have both of you here for Christmas. It’d be a bit cozier in the house, as Nico will be here for part of the holiday. No worries about the sleeping arrangements, we’ll definitely figure it out. Lady and Trish are welcome as well. The more the merrier!_

_Give us a call to let us know. Hope to see you soon!_

_Love,_

_Nero and Kyrie + the kids_

Dante’s smile widens in amusement as he keeps going, knowing there’s more. And sure enough, Nero’s writing is scrawled out along the bottom, hastily added in after Kyrie finished:

_Still not taking no for an answer, and that goes double for the old man. Be here by Monday the 21st or I’m coming up there._

He snorted as he finished. Not that he doubted Nero wasn’t being serious, but there was something so wonderfully befitting their family that there was a threat enclosed with the invitation.

Vergil stomped into the room just then, and rather ticked off if his angry, “ _What_ do you want?” was any indication.

Dante held out the card to him. “From your son.”

There was a pregnant pause before Vergil took the card from him and read it over. Dante leaned back to watch his reaction. His brother’s expression remained mostly neutral, with perhaps just a hint of a smile. It was easy to tell when he got to Nero’s added note, however, when a defiant frown stretched across his lips. “Is he ordering us to come down there for the holiday?”

“Preeeetty much,” Dante answered with a shrug. “Hey, he did it to me last year. Looks like it’s going to become something of a holiday tradition.” He smiled. “It’s kind of nice.”

“It’s nice that he’s strong-arming us into this?”

“Nice that he wants us there and that we have something to call a tradition, such as it is.” Two years didn’t make something a tradition, but it was a start. Dante would take whatever he can get. “His implied threat aside, is there really any reason you wouldn’t want to go? We’ll get at least a week’s worth of Kyrie’s cooking. There’ll be cookies. There’ll probably be eggnog. And it’s time with your son.” Playing that last particular card worked wonders, Dante noticed. As awkward and distant and occasionally stupid as Vergil could be, deep down within his brother Dante knew there was a desire to connect with his son and try to make up for lost time. Ultimately it would win out over whatever got Vergil hung up about going, but he wanted to know what was going on in his brother’s head. Though, he had a good guess as to what it was.

“I haven’t…”

“Celebrated the holidays in any capacity in decades?” Dante finished for him.

Vergil nodded. “There have been long stretches of time that I didn’t even notice they had come and gone. They lost meaning for me a long time ago.”

Dante couldn’t exactly judge. Until last year, he spent most of his holidays alone in varying states of inebriation. Nero learned about it, which is what lead to last year’s invitation/demand. And the kid knew enough about his father to double down on the invitation/demand again for this year, and likely for the next many years. “Doesn’t mean you can’t find it again.”

“You’re much more accustomed to it than I am.”

He leveled a look at Vergil. “That doesn’t make it any easier.” On the contrary, he thought his brother had it easier in that regard. For most of the last few decades he would have loved to not have taken notice of the season. “Last Christmas was a hell of an adjustment, but it beats the same old shit that happened every other year.”

Vergil drummed his fingers on his thigh, still holding the card in his other hand. “What did you do last year?”

“Hung out. Attempted to help make cookies, proceeded to get banned from the kitchen-”

“And how am I not surprised?” Vergil asked drolly.

Dante ignored that smart-ass remark. “Kept the kids entertained, watched some movies, opened up some gifts, ate a lot of food… It was a nice time after it was all said and done.”

“It sounds so…”

“Normal?”

“Yes, that is a word for it.”

Dante rolled his eyes and nudged Vergil with his foot. “Come on. Give it a chance. New life, new Vergil, remember?”

“It’s not like I have much say in the matter. Nero will drag us there regardless, so I may as well come willingly,” he groused as he tossed the card onto Dante’s desk.

“Oh boo-hoo, you poor thing. You have to spend a holiday with your family and eat good, free food and get presents. The _travesty._ ”

Vergil’s eyes widened a fraction. “Gifts? Am I… expected to purchase gifts for all of them? I don’t-”

Dante waved off his concern. “We – and by that I mean _I –_ will handle it. Relax, you’ve been back a month, they’re not expecting you to have the cash to give them anything. Not that they expect it anyway, but they’re _really_ not going to this year.” He gestured to the card. “You showing up and being there is the present they want.”

“The present of my presence.” Vergil snorted derisively. “I cannot recall the last time anyone considered that a gift.”

“People want you around now. Isn’t that enough?”

His brother looked down at the card, his expression softening. “It’s more than what I ever expected.” He shook his head. “All of this is.”

Dante smiled. “Welcome to a somewhat normal-ish life, Vergil. It’s better than what you think.”

~*~

Vergil takes off his coat and lays it gently on the ground. “This is much more difficult than I anticipated.”

“Just because it doesn’t involve fighting something doesn’t mean it’s easier.”

That’s met with a well-deserved glower.

“Okay, okay, but come on, we’re not off to a bad start. We’ve been here three days and Nero’s only tossed us out on our asses once!”

“Oh, is _that_ the metric we’re using?” Vergil quips sarcastically.

“It’s not the worst as far as they go,” Dante shoots back, doing his best to sound convincing. “And hey, if that’s the only time he does I’ll consider that a resounding success.”

“That should be easily doable so long as you don’t feel the need to argue with me over such an idiotic thing.”

“I couldn’t _not_ argue when you were so blatantly wrong. Besides, _you_ were arguing, too.”

“ _Enough._ We are not getting into it again.”

“…I’m still right.”

Dante barely dodges the summon sword.

* * *

Dante dramatically hung his head, arms crossed. “Vergil, I really, really tried. I wanted to make this work. But I just _can’t_ if this is your stance. I can forgive many things, but not this.”

Vergil aimed a deadpan stare at Dante from across the living room. “So this is the hill you’re choosing to die on.”

“I won’t betray such a fundamental belief.”

“Dante-”

“How can you think that _Die Hard_ isn’t a Christmas movie?!”

“Because it isn’t!”

“It absolutely is! It takes place _during_ Christmas!”

“That does not make it a Christmas film! Christmas is not a central theme to the movie. It’s just the point in time it occurs.”

Dante scoffed. “Christmas plays an important role in the film.”

“And what would that be?”

(By that point, the arguing caught Nero’s attention. He popped his head around the corner, mostly out of sight and got an eyeful – and earful – of his father and uncle arguing.)

“John McClane flies to LA to reconcile with his wife! On Christmas! Do you know how many damn Christmas films are about reconciliation?”

“A point which is only relevant at the very beginning and very end of the film. Everything else is just mindless action as he takes on a tower full of so-called terrorists.”

“But it’s still _relevant_.”

(Nero edged towards the front door and opened it.)

“In the barest sense of the term! One could also argue that it’s a commentary on the-”

It was only when it was a second too late did Dante notice Nero. He only had time to widen his eyes before those damned spectral arms lashed out and grabbed the brothers. They swung their legs and fought, but Nero wrestled them out the door and flung them several feet. “You wanna argue pointless shit, do it outside!” he snapped before slamming the door shut.

From his sprawled out position on the ground, Dante muttered, “When we get back we have got to put our heads together and figure out a way to counter those arms.”

Vergil stood up and brushed himself off. “Agreed.”

* * *

Dante straightens up. “So we got put in a time out. So what? And despite everything, you seemed to like making the cookies.”

“That was a mostly relaxing exercise, aside from Kyle’s inane prattling and his attempts to sabotage my cookies.”

Dante makes a mental note to tell Nero to tell Kyle to ease off on bombarding Vergil. He fears the kid will wind up stabbed by the end of this otherwise. “And you even learned something you and Nero have in common.”

For just a second, Vergil’s lips twitch to almost form a smile.

* * *

Dante remained banned from the kitchen. Kyrie clearly didn’t feel like curbing Dante’s love of piling on sprinkles again. Not that she said that in such terms, but she rather quickly invited Vergil to help them make cookies, and she apologized to Dante that there would be too many in the kitchen if he joined, too. “You’re still our best taste tester,” she added with a smile.

Honestly, Dante didn’t mind. He had his shot last year, and now Vergil could try it. He was the one who needed to immerse with everyone here. So Dante contented himself with watching the shenanigans unfold.

Kyle did, in fact, prattle on quite a bit. The kids always had a ceaseless fount of things to talk about. Luckily for Vergil, Kyrie handled most of it, answering his questions and keeping him on track. Only when he directly asked Vergil something did the poor guy have to respond.

Of course, Vergil was a diligent worker, methodically pressing out the dough with the cutters and then putting the cut outs on the cookie sheets. When it came time to sprinkle them, Dante smiled. He knew what was coming. If Kyrie thought she roped herself someone who was more moderate about sprinkle usage, she was about to be sadly mistaken.

As the sprinkles tumbled out, Kyrie glanced over at what Vergil was doing. “Oh, you can put more than that on them.”

“These are just the right amount. That way it doesn’t drown out the taste of the cookie with over-sugary nonsense.”

Kyle and Julio exchanged baffled looks. Dante swore for a moment he saw the specter of death flash across Kyrie’s face. Whatever it was, it passed in an instant. She looked back at Dante, and what he did see for sure was exasperation.

His shoulders shook in silent laughter as he shrugged. _Sorry, Kyrie. You can’t win either way._

“Well, I’m sure someone will eat those anyway,” she said as she turned back to her work.

The sprinkling continued until all the cookies were covered to varying degrees. But Kyle, not content to take Vergil’s blasphemous cookie to sprinkle ratio laying down, waited for Vergil to look away before quickly snapping out and dumping sprinkles on one of Vergil’s cookies. Now of course, Vergil immediately noticed this and narrowed his eyes at Kyle. The boy stared back unflinchingly as he moved his hand and pretended to sprinkle another cookie.

Vergil made the mistake of thinking Kyle wouldn’t try the same thing twice. He turned to ask Kyrie something, and Kyle took the opportunity to sprinkle yet another one of his cookies. And again Vergil caught him. “Do not keep adding sprinkles to those I’ve already decorated.”

And again Kyle pretended to sprinkle another one. “I’m not. Don’t know whatcha talkin’ about.”

“I very clearly saw you doing that.”

“Nuh uh.”

“Yes, I did.”

At that point, Julio quickly grabbed the sheet and put it in the oven before Kyle could wreak more havoc.

“You can’t prove it.”

“I can by the fact that there are more sprinkles on those two cookies than there were before.”

“They were always there.”

And now Kyrie finally stepped in and admonished Kyle. “You did and you know it. Please do not lie. Leave his cookies be. You have your own to decorate.”

Kyle slumped his shoulders, put out by the scolding. Julio patted his shoulder and murmured, “Good try.”

The cookie making resumed as they prepared the next batch. There was a sort of uneasy silence that fell as Vergil watched Kyle closely and Kyle defiantly stared back. The kid had guts, Dante would give him that.

Just minutes after Kyrie pulled out the first batch from the oven, Carlo came charging down the hall towards the kitchen, followed by Nero. “Someone smelled the cookies. Woke him up real fast.” He walked into the kitchen. “It does smell good, though.”

“And we’re just getting started. That’s the first batch there,” Kyrie said.

“They look great.” Nero glanced over the batch. He stopped at one in the corner and his eyes lit up. “This one’s perfect.” He picked up the cookie and popped it into his mouth. “Barely any sprinkles. Love it.”

And here came the moment Dante had been waiting for. Vergil paused in his cookie making, turning to his son with a mildly surprised expression. Nero frowned, confused as to what caused it. “What?”

“…Vergil made those,” Kyle mumbled.

“Right,” Julio added. “I forgot Nero likes them without sprinkles, too.”

Dante’s laughter drew their attention to the living room. He kicked back, reclining back against the couch, eggnog in hand and endlessly amused as he regarded his brother and nephew. Both of whom were leveling hard stares at him. “I was wondering how long that would take.” He lifted his glass to them before taking a drink.

~*~

“You could have told him.”

“And ruin the surprise?”

Vergil takes off his boots. “That one instance doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going well.”

“So it means it’s a complete disaster?”

Vergil grits his teeth, as exasperated as Dante is. “It’s been three days. And we’ve still got another week or so to go. Tomorrow is Christmas and if the past few days have been any indication-”

“One questionable incident does not ruin a trip, especially where we’re concerned.” Dante feels like he’s grasping at invisible daggers, trying to find which one is digging into Vergil. “Why are you bent out of shape over-”

“It isn’t just that.” Vergil glowers at him. “Don’t tell me you forgot what happened yesterday.”

It actually does take Dante a second to suss out what he’s referring to. “Oh, come on. That-”

“You saw the disappointment. I failed a completely simple request.”

“Vergil, it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

* * *

The island woke up to a sea of snow glistening under the morning sun. Naturally, this meant the kids screamed their excited little hearts out at just past eight and roused the rest of the household. It wasn’t long before they were dressed and outside, running around in the snow and testing to see how well it packed.

The adults were more leisurely in their getting ready, but soon most of them were outside as well, watching the kids play. Dante took note of the snowballs the boys were pelting at each other. That meant good, wet snow. He smirked as he formed a snowball, waiting until no one was paying attention to him before he (comparatively gently) lobbed one at the back of Kyle’s head.

“Hey!” the boy spun around, glancing accusatorily at those standing behind him.

“Wasn’t me,” Julio said with a shrug.

When Kyle looked at Dante, he just shook his head and pointed a finger at Nero.

His nephew let out a long-suffering sigh. “Don’t even think of pinning it on me. You’re the only one who’s enough of a jerk to throw it at the back of a kid’s head.”

“One has to learn early in life to be aware of one’s surroundings.” Dante sagely held up a finger. “You never know when-”

A snowball will pelt you. Which, ironically, was exactly what happened. Dante grimaced as the snow sunk into his eyes, wiping it away with his hand.

Julio smirked. “You were saying?”

Nero threw his head back and howled in laughter. Even Kyrie couldn’t help giggling, despite her trying to school herself enough to admonish Julio.

_I guess I deserved that._ Dante stood up, looking around the yard before he spotted a sufficiently large enough snowbank. “That spot should suffice.”

“For?” Julio took a step back.

“Dumping a teenage boy into.”

“RUN, JULIO!” Kyle screamed. He hastily formed snowballs and hurled them at Dante as Julio hauled ass past him. “I’LL HOLD HIM OFF AS LONG AS I CAN!”

Dante easily ducked and weaved around Kyle’s desperately thrown snowballs. The kid only got three off before Dante scooped him up and hauled him over his shoulder. Kyle yelled and beat at Dante’s back, but that hardly slowed him as he ran down Julio and nabbed him, too.

Honestly, he expected Nero to be yelling at him right now, or at least Kyrie. But the boys’ guardians seemed fine with Dante tossing them like two gangly sacks into the snow pile.

Dante dusted off his hands, pleased with his handiwork. He gave Julio credit for being that ballsy, but that didn’t mean he was gonna let him get away with it. Chuckling to himself, he let the boys sort their soaked selves out as he headed back towards the porch.

Shaking his head in amusement, Nero leaned back, angling himself towards the door. “Hey, Dad!” he called out. “Wanna help me lay out Dante for bullying two kids?”

“Bullying my ass,” Dante said with a laugh. “If you want to see me bullying then I’ll demonstrate on you, no problem.”

Both Dante and Nero expected Vergil to pop out; after all, when did the elder son of Sparda pass up the chance to beat up his brother? But to their surprise, Vergil remained in his indoor clothes, watching from the other side of the door. It was hard for Dante to see him clearly, but there seemed to be a kind of uneasiness to his brother; it was something in the way he stood so rigidly, and how he struggled to meet their gaze. “I’m fine in here.”

“What, and miss out on pelting him with snowballs?” Nero said. “I thought you’d be all over that.”

“I was always the snowball fight champion,” Dante gloated. “Your old man knows there’s no point going toe to toe with me.”

But the taunt didn’t work like Dante hoped. Instead, Vergil merely shook his head as he stepped back. “I’d just rather watch.”

Yes, there was disappointment. Dante saw it clear as day in Nero’s eyes. He had half a mind to drag Vergil out there, but before he could, Nero shrugged and said, “Whatever.” He turned around and pointed at Dante. “Guess I’ll have to deal with you myself.”

* * *

Dante straightens back up. “Lemme ask you something: how do you picture a visit that you would consider to be going well?”

“Not being tossed out of the house by my son, for one thing.”

“That’s how we function in this family. Nero would be more worried if we were always behaving ourselves. Besides, it wasn’t like he was kicking us out.”

Vergil shakes his head. “It is difficult enough to – never mind, it doesn’t matter. It’s a pointless query. This isn’t going well and that’s all I will say.”

This is turning into less a battle of reason and more into a battle of wills. Dante hates that, because then it just means proverbially headbutting each other until one finally caves and that’s not how he wants to accomplish this. He doesn’t want Vergil to acquiesce just because it’s easier or not worth the fight; he wants him to actually understand.

_But I knew I was signing up for this when I dragged him home,_ he reminds himself. This was never going to be easy. “All right.” He lifts his hands in (temporary) surrender. This battle won’t be won tonight. And he might not even be the one who can win it.


	10. A Somewhat Normal(ish) Christmas Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nero pulls off a Christmas miracle

Nero fully expects to be the only one up this early in the morning. While he’s not always an early riser, he knows he has a big day ahead of him and wants to steal a moment of peace while he can. He quietly makes his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. He stops in his tracks when he sees he’s not alone.

Vergil eyes his son from his perch against the far counter, cup of coffee in hand.

“Oh, hey. Mornin’.” Nero rubs the back of his head, stuck awkwardly in place.

“Good morning.”

Nero can all but hear the proverbial crickets chirping as they stand there, trapped in an uncomfortable silence. He struggles to find the words; things have been weirdly tense since yesterday. He isn’t sure why. The visit had been going well up until that point. What switched in Vergil’s mind that led to this sudden shift? “Merry Christmas,” he finally says, forcing himself to move and pour out a cup of coffee for himself. “I didn’t know you were an early riser.”

“I always have been.” Vergil sips from his cup.

_This is going to be painful._ Nero sighs through his nose as he dumps a gratuitous amount of sugar and creamer into his mug. He’s being stonewalled, and on Christmas Day, too. It’d be easier to just let it slide and ride out the rest of the visit like this. Nero hardly wants to confront his father. But he didn’t invite him down here to just ignore him. He regards him with a frown as he nurses his coffee. “What’s going on?”

“There’s nothing-”

“Dad.” Nero’s too tired to do this song and dance. “Just be straight with me. It’s like you’ve been on edge since yesterday and I don’t get it.” He gestures helplessly. “I’m _trying_ here. And I thought it was going okay until yesterday-”

That gets a reaction out of his father. “You think it’s been going well?”

“Yeah?” Nero’s frown deepens. “You don’t?” And he can’t stop his heart from sinking at that.

“You’ve tossed me and Dante out once already. I’m hardly getting along with some of the people here, and yesterday was…”

Nero tries to read his father’s face for some hint of what’s bothering him. But he’s as closed of a book as Dante is. His mind spins as he recounts yesterday’s events, trying to pinpoint the source of this tension. “…is this about you not coming outside?”

Vergil’s grip on his mug tightens. Even before he says anything, Nero knows the answer. “It’s only been a few days and with how things are going-”

“What? That this whole thing was a mistake?”

Vergil makes a frustrated sound. “You sincerely think it’s been going well, despite how I’ve… been?”

“ _Yes._ ” Nero battles with the simultaneous urges to hug and punch his father. “You’re holding yourself to a higher standard than everyone else is. Dad, if I wanted a completely peaceful, easy Christmas, I wouldn’t have invited you and Dante down here. I didn’t expect this to go perfect. I figured there’d be at least a couple arguments and moments where I was gonna be frustrated with you. That doesn’t mean it’s hopeless.”

Vergil shakes his head in disbelief. He’s hitting some kind of wall, one that Nero is beginning to understand. “That’s not exactly a conventional way to want to spend the holiday.”

“There is not a damn thing about us that is conventional.” Of all the stupid arguments, why is he-

An epiphany hits Nero just then. It’s not a happy one, and he’s not even sure it’s going to be well-received. But despite his unease, he asks, “Do you really think it’s not going well, or do you just want it to not be going well? Because if it isn’t going well, then it proves that you’re right, that you’re not cut out for a normal life, and it’d give you an excuse to go back to being on your own?”

Whether or not Vergil consciously chose that, Nero sees the flash of realization in his father’s eyes. _Yup, got it in one._ The best response he can muster immediately is to take another drink.

“Nice try, asshole. You’re not getting off that easy.”

“ _Why_?” The question isn’t asked so much as lashed out. “Why put up with this? Why do this knowing that I’m going to frustrate and disappoint?”

“Because you’re my dad! The only other family I’ve got besides an uncle.” Nero slams his mug down on the counter, almost enough to make the coffee slosh over the rim. “You don’t get it. You and Dante had your whatever between you two that made you want to kill the other for whatever stupid reason. But you’ve always _had_ him, even if you weren’t together. And you had your parents, even if only for a little bit. But I never had that. I never had my parents. I never had a brother I could beat up. And Dante didn’t have you for the longest time, or at least he thought he didn’t. So we’re putting up with your bullshit because we’d rather do that than not have you at all! Is that _really_ that hard to believe?”

“…yes.” Vergil looks down into his mug, pensive as he mulls over Nero’s rant. “But I believe you’re being sincere. It’s just that I’m not used to this.”

“Well, get used to it,” Nero mutters.

“I’m trying.” Vergil snorts. “Perhaps not very well, but I am.”

“And that’s all I’m asking. I’m not expecting you to be perfect. Or even great. Just keep trying.”

“I make no promises as to the result, but I will try.”

Nero picks his mug back up and takes a drink. “Was that so hard? Besides, you’re getting free shit while here. That’s gotta be worth something.” And that reminds him: “Oh, yeah. I should get you your gift while it’s quiet.”

“Do you not usually open gifts together all at once?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t seem like your scene. Unless you really want to.”

“…I’ll take it now.”

“S’what I thought.” Nero sets his drink down yet again before he traipses off to the garage. He hid the present there under a blanket. It was a little risky, since Vergil and Dante were staying in the van, but as he hoped, neither of them thought anything of it. Given its size, it takes Nero a minute to wrangle it inside. But it’s worth the effort when he sees the look of surprise on Vergil’s face.

“Did you build this?”

“The boys and I did, yeah.” Bookshelves aren’t very hard to build, so it’d been an easy project for them to work together on. “Figured you don’t have much furniture yet, and since you’re a book nerd, this would be a good start. And you’ve already got one book to put on it.”

Vergil smirks. “An auspicious start as any.” He runs his hand over the top shelf. “…thank you, Nero. I don’t have anything to give in return-”

“You’ve been back for a month. And the only present I want is you here. Which I got, so we’re even.” Nero leans back against the counter, a bit uncomfortable with how emotional this is getting. They’ve both been rather vulnerable the last few minutes. While it had been necessary, he hopes it won’t be for much longer.

As if in answer to his prayers, a moment later he hears excited footsteps heading down the stairs, and Kyrie calling out after the boys as they barrel into the living room. Nero smiles, grateful for the distraction. “Looks like the party’s about to start. Wanna get this visit back on track the right way?”

“Meaning?”

“By kicking Dante out of bed. And hey, I won’t even yell at you if it involves violence. Just no bloodshed, got it?” He might regret giving his dad permission to do that, but hey, it’s Christmas.

“Now that’s what I call a good start to Christmas.” With a little _too_ much pep in his step, Vergil goes to the garage to wake up his brother in some painful manner of his choosing.

Nero shakes his head in amusement. It likely says something not so great about his family that they like to punch, throw, and generally abuse each other, but nothing about them is normal. What matters is that his family is together. Even if they’re not perfect, even if they’re struggling to learn how to _be_ a family, as long as they’re together, whatever it takes, Nero will keep fighting for it. _That’s_ what Christmas is all about, if you ask him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone!! And since I won't be updating anything for a couple weeks, have a happy New Year too! Let's hope 2021 manages to be a slightly smaller dumpster fire than this year's been...


	11. Misery's End's Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patty's last encounter with a miserable man, and the first time she met who he really was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New year, new one-shots! I've got some lined up.
> 
> The next few are going to be a bit different from the norm. This one and the next one are not going to be post-DMC5 like the others have been thus far. Which I know is technically cheating, but bear with me. They're also going to be a part of a longer "story" arc. I'm not labelling them as individual parts like I did for The Long, Dark Shadow, because they each could technically stand on their own. You'll see where I'm going with this as they roll out.
> 
> That being said, I'm going to put up a content/trigger warning for this fic, and the three that will follow: there will be discussions of alcoholism and depression. The first part of this fic will have the most blatant representation of them; the rest will be just discussing or mentioning them. Yeah, these are not going to be terribly light-hearted pieces. But hey, you'll get to see more Patty, which I promised.
> 
> ......I swear I'll write light-hearted stuff eventually. But for now, onto the heavy stuff.

Patty likes it when Devil May Cry is lively and full of other people. When Morrison, Trish and or Lady are there, it feels so much brighter and happier. The pall that normally hangs over the place disappears, and it allows a glimpse into what it could be like.

Alas, that’s not going to be the case today.

She peers her head in and looks around as she opens one of the front doors. It’s quiet and dark inside. With no windows, the front office relies entirely on artificial light. When those are off, the place gets nearly pitch black. Patty frowns at the lack of life. “Dante?” she calls out as she walks inside, leaving the door ajar so she has some way of seeing.

No answer. She huffs and meanders further inside. “Daaaanteeeee,” she says. “I know you’re in here. Why are the lights off?” He’s not napping; the couch is empty. Even if he was, he doesn’t usually bother with the lights.

Still no response. The ongoing silence combined with the darkness nearly unnerves her. But she puffs herself up a bit and keeps walking. He has to be in there _somewhere-_

“Leave, Patty,” a voice responds gruffly.

She stops in her tracks, taking a closer look around, trying to pin him down in the inky black room. “Why are you alone in the dark? That’s just creepy.”

“ _Leave._ ”

“Now you’re being rude.” Patty wanders over to the other side of the office. Behind the pool table, she makes out a large lump on the floor. What little light reaches over there reflects off of bottles laying around the figure. “What are you doing?”

“None of your business. I said get out.” His words are slurred.

“…you’re drinking heavily.” Patty scrunches her nose. “Why-”

“ ** _OUT!_** ” The word punches through the air like a sonic boom. The sheer venomous force in that single syllable startles Patty enough to make her stumble back.

For all the time Patty’s known Dante, aware of what he’s capable of, she’s never been as frightened of him as she is in that moment. She gasps and spins around, scrambling for the door. “You’re such a jerk!” she cries out. “I hate you!” Those are her parting words as she runs out the door.

Unfortunately, they’re also the last words she’ll say to him for two years.

* * *

Dante went on a mission. In her anger, Patty had poo-pooed Morrison and pretended like she didn’t care. He’d come back at some point anyway. But he doesn’t. A week passes, then a month. Patty keeps coming by the shop, expecting Dante to be back any day.

More weeks pass. Patty’s there nearly every other day, popping in and hoping to see Dante. Instead, she only ever sees Trish. In fact, Trish is there all the time. Patty suspects she’s moved back in. About two months after Dante left, Patty discovers the truth. She ducks into the bathroom when Trish isn’t looking and sees her toothbrush. If Trish is back, then that means Dante is gone.

That’s when she breaks down and cries.

Morrison’s called, because Trish has no idea how to handle a hysterical pre-teen. Patty sits on the floor in the bathroom for what feels like hours, bawling her eyes out while Morrison tries to comfort her. It’s then that she learns what happened: Dante had to go into the underworld and got trapped down there. They had no idea if and when he’d be back.

So begins almost two years of Dante’s absence from her life. Patty still drops by the shop to visit Trish, though she never stops hoping that she’ll see Dante. That hope grows dim as one year passes and wanes into a second year. And with the passage of time comes an ever-increasing weight of regret. The last words she hurled at him were in anger, and now she may never get the chance to apologize. It’s a harsh lesson to learn at a young age.

Then, one warm day in early June, Patty meanders over to Devil May Cry to see what Trish is up to. She misses Dante, but Trish’s current takeover of the business has allowed Patty to get to know the demon much better. They’ve bonded over a shared love of clothes, and it’s that mutual interest that has Patty heading for the shop.

_I know Trish is gonna think this outfit is super cute,_ Patty thinks as she pushes open the door. She grins in excitement. “Hey Trish, look at-” The words die the moment she takes in the scene in the office.

Patty, Morrison and Lady are standing around the couch, clearly in mid-conversation when Patty came in. Their voices die down as they turn around. Patty frowns and takes a step closer. She looks in between them to the figured clad in red that’s huddled on the couch.

“…Dante?”

He looks up. His hair’s gotten long and horrifically shaggy, obscuring much of his face. More of it is shrouded by the unkempt beard he’s grown during his time down in the underworld. But under the hair and layers of dirt and blood, Patty barely makes out a smile. “Hey, kid.”

She’s over there in a shot. She all but slams into him before she wraps him in a tight hug. To her surprise, he returns it. “You’re back! You’ve been gone for _forever_ and…” Patty chokes back a sob. “I’m really sorry. About what I said. I didn’t mean it.”

“Hm? Oh, that.” Dante chuckles. “Forgot all about it, so nothing to be sorry for.”

Patty can’t tell if he’s being honest or if he’s just saying it to make her feel better. But right now, it doesn’t matter. Dante’s here and he’s okay, if very dirty and probably exhausted. “When did you get back?”

“About an hour ago,” Trish answers for him. “He stumbled in here and nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Pretty sure I gave one to half the people I walked past, too,” Dante mumbles.

Patty leans back. She breathes in, and immediately regrets it as his malodorous odor hits her senses. “Ugh.” She forces herself to start breathing in and out through her mouth. “You really need a shower.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dante rubs his face. “I’d kill for a pizza right now, though.”

Patty whirls on Morrison. “He’s been back for an hour and you still haven’t gotten him a pizza?! After two years of being gone!”

Morrison, well used to being chewed out by Patty, laughs and holds up his hands in surrender. “You’re right, that’s my bad. I’ll call for a couple pies.”

“No olives!”

“I know, I know,” he says as he picks up the phone. “It hasn’t been that long.”

She turns back to a smiling Dante. “If I knew everyone would be this nice after being gone for two years, I’d do it more often.” He laughs as Patty kicks him in the shin. “But not that nice, apparently.”

And it strikes her then, just how nice _he’s_ being. Normally there’d be some quip about her being a brat by now. At the very least, she expected him to complain about the kick. _He’s probably just really tired,_ she thinks, not wanting to get her hopes up. This won’t last.

Lady takes a seat on the opposite end of the couch from Dante, leaning away from his – or more accurately, his stench. “You really should shower, Dante. I don’t think you realize how bad the odor is. It’ll be a bit before food gets here, anyway.”

He makes a face at the suggestion. “For one thing, I don’t know if I’m getting back up any time soon.” His eyes trail away and towards the far end of the room, towards the cabinet in the back.

Patty’s smile falls. _Oh. He wants a drink._ She just hopes he keeps it to one or two. It’s been nice to see him entirely sober and she’d much prefer it if he kept that way. Otherwise it’ll ruin the visit, and that’s the last thing she wants after not seeing him for two years.

Trish nods. “I’ll pour you something, but then I am gonna toss you in the bathroom.”

Dante opens his mouth to answer, but he looks over at Patty and sees her face. She tries to school it in, not wanting to hear a lecture or something. No matter what she says about his drinking, it won’t change anything. And she supposes that after being in actual Hell for two years, a drink isn’t a totally unreasonable request. And yet, her heart still sinks.

“You know what, I’m good,” Dante suddenly says, pushing himself up off the couch with a pained groan. “I better just shower before the four of you henpeck me to death over it. It’ll probably help with the muscles, too.” Dante gingerly walks past Patty, giving her hair a ruffle. “Besides, a man can only hear he reeks like a dead animal so many times before his pride starts taking a hit.”

Lady rolls her eyes. “Your ego needs to be taken down several dozen notches.”

Dante waves her off. “Patty, if pizza comes before I’m out, you’re in charge of making sure those two,” He points at Lady and Trish, “don’t eat everything.”

As the older women rebuke them for his insinuating they were pigs, Patty laughs and salutes. “You got it!”

He gives her a thumbs-up before ducking into the bathroom. Faintly she hears him complaining about all of Trish’s stuff being in there. Patty bites her bottom lip to stifle her laughter as Trish glowers at the bathroom door.

Nothing is said until the shower turns on. That’s when Trish glances over at the liquor cabinet. “That was a first.”

“He was gone for two years,” Morrison points out. “Plenty of time to dry out. Pretty sure they don’t sell the stuff down in the underworld, after all.”

Patty breathes out a quiet sigh of relief, drowning out the adults’ conversation as she flops down in Dante’s chair. She gets a good look at her clothes, which now have a thin film of dirt and grime on the front of them. _This’ll be fun to explain to Mom._ She didn’t even get to show them off to Trish, but oh well. More important things are on her mind. Dante’s back, and for the first time, Patty dares to hope that the miserable man she so often saw back then might be a thing of the past. Only time will tell.


	12. Surprising Discoveries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patty learns a few surprising things about Dante after she meets someone who looks suspiciously like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of... whatever the hell this is. Story arc thing. If you missed the previous part, please see the AN on that for relevant warnings.

Fourteen-year-old Patty isn’t prepared for what she’s about to see when she barges into Devil May Cry one warm autumn afternoon. She shoves open the double doors with a grand flourish. “Dante, what-” But whatever diatribe she’s about to launch into dies in its tracks when she realizes that Dante isn’t alone.

Sitting on the edge of his desk is a young man she’s never seen before. Sporting a dark blue leather duster and a sword that could decimate anything that stood in its path, the man regards her with a curious but guarded look. The man who, she now belatedly realizes, looks exactly. Like. Dante.

“Uh…”

“Nice of you to drop in as usual, Patty,” Dante quips from his seat behind the desk.

“It’s – it’s a shop! You’re open, I can barge in if I want!” Patty smooths the front of her dress and takes a steadying breath. “So, you gonna introduce us?”

“Heh.” Dante gestures to her. “Nero, this is Patty. Patty, Nero.”

“Hey.” Nero waves at her.

“Hi.” She levels a deadpan look at Dante. “That’s not an introduction!”

“I introduced you to each other! You know each other’s names! What more do you want?”

“A little context? Like, ‘Nero, this is Patty. We met some years back when I took a job that had me protecting her. We’ve been inseparable ever since.’”

“That’s certainly an interesting way of spinning that,” he teases.

“It’s true!” Patty huffs.

Nero suppresses a smile. “I guess if we’re doing this, then Dante and I met when he was on a mission, too.”

“When?” Patty tilts her head.

“Last year.”

“Wha-? And we’re only just meeting now?”

“Uh, well… I don’t live nearby.”

Dante butts in with a wave of his hand, saying, “I met him on that mission Lady asked me to take.”

Patty shuffles through her memories. _A mission from Lady…_ “Oh. That one that you were gone for over a month on? Right, you said it was pretty far away.”

“Exactly. So don’t give me lip about not bringing him around sooner.”

With all the adolescent indignation she can summon, she retorts, “I can if I want to.”

Morrison makes a timely arrival just then, stepping into the shop and raising an eyebrow at the scene unfolding. “Am I dropping by at a bad time?”

“No, just the opposite.” Dante swivels his legs off his desk and stands up. “Please tell me you have a job.”

Morrison beckons him over to the couch. “I do. There are a few details we gotta go over first.”

The older men retire to the couch to talk, leaving Nero and Patty to hang out at the desk. Patty has a thousand questions, but those will have to be saved for later, when she can talk to Dante one-on-one. She leans back against the wall, shooting a smile at Nero. She has to admit, for looking so much like Dante, he’s pretty darn cute. “How long you been up here?”

“Just got here yesterday.”

Nero fiddles with the sleeve of his coat. A flash of bright blue catches Patty’s eye. She only gets a moment, but it’s enough for her to realize something isn’t quite right about his arm. It glows and his fingers look more like claws. “…your arm…”

Nero yanks his sleeve down and shifts himself away from her. “It’s nothing.”

“Oh, um… sorry, I didn’t mean-” _Crap, way to blow your first impression._ “You don’t have to tell me if it’s something personal.” She plays with her hair, mind racing to try and get this conversation back on track. “Um, so are you up to just visit?”

“Something like that. I think Dante just wanted to show off his shop.” Nero casts a skeptical look. “He talked it up a lot, but it wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“It’s more like a man’s den than an office,” Patty admits. “If it weren’t for the desk and the cabinets you really wouldn’t be able to tell. But I can’t imagine it looking any different. If it looked professional it just wouldn’t be Dante, you know?”

“I guess not. How long have you known him?”

“About five or six years now?” She can’t believe it’s been so long already since that day when he begrudgingly took that mission to escort her. Her whole life changed, though she hardly knew it then. “And he still can’t get rid of me,” she jokes with a laugh.

“You’d think it’d be the other way around,” he murmurs. “I don’t know a lot of teenage girls who’d hang around with an older guy like Dante.”

Patty shrugs. “He’s like a much older brother. A dumb one sometimes. But he saved my life and he’s the reason I reunited with my mom, so I kind of owe him. And anyway, he’s not _sooo_ bad once you get to know him.” At least these days. She wouldn’t have been as quick to give him that half-hearted praise way back when. “Like, if he asked you up here then that means he likes you. Dante’s a hard nut to crack, so if he took a shine to you it’s for a reason.” _Probably having something to do with you guys looking alike and… probably being related. They have to be, right?_

She glances over at Dante, still chatting with Morrison. _Yeah… definitely need to ask him about it later. But for now…_ She turns back to Nero and puts on her most charming smile. _Time to get all the deets I can._

* * *

Aside from the tragic fact that Nero isn’t single, Patty’s quite pleased with what she’s learned. Nero seems like a nice guy, if a bit of a punk. And he doesn’t seem to have many of Dante’s more annoying traits, which is a nice bonus. The last thing the world needs is two Dantes.

Speaking of…

Patty checks her phone. _Where the heck is he?_ Nero’s left for the night, and she’s certain Dante will return soon. It’s only a matter of time before he makes his way home. Then they can talk.

But as the minutes tick by, Patty slowly realizes this is going to be a long wait. She sighs. She might as well stretch her legs. In this case, that means strolling around the shop. It’s a layout she’s intimately familiar with after all these years, but every once in awhile she makes a discovery.

She wanders by the desk with the picture of his mother standing out amongst all the papers strewn about. It took until last year before she learned who she is. She still has no idea why she and Trish look exactly alike. Any and all questions regarding the matter only annoyed Dante, and he refused to clarify. Frustrating, but typical.

Her attention turns to the big cabinet by the stairs. _Wonder what kind of booze he has in here now._ It’s a masochistic exercise; she hates seeing it, but curiosity gets the better of her. She kneels and opens the bottom-most door to find… magazines. Patty tilts her head. _Huh?_ She opens another door and finds an assortment of junk. She goes through every space in that cabinet, but she doesn’t find a single bottle of alcohol.

“Where it’d all go?” She’s noticed Dante hasn’t been drinking as much lately, but he always had liquor in this cabinet for as long as she’s known him. _…but now that I’m thinking about it, I haven’t seen a drink in his hand in a while. It’s been… months._

The front door opens. Patty quickly shuts the cabinet door and stands up. As Dante clears the threshold, she quips, “There you are!”

Dante sighs tiredly. “Why are you here?”

“Why do you think?”

“To pester me then,” Dante concludes, walking past her to hang up his sword.

“No.” Patty can’t tell if he’s being deliberately obtuse or if he’s that clueless. “It’s about Nero.”

Dante pauses ever so briefly. Patty learned long ago that reading Dante requires picking up on the small gestures, because he won’t give much away. She hit a nerve, and she wonders if this is about to turn into an argument. “What about him?”

“Now I know you’re being dumb on purpose,” Patty gripes. “C’mon, Dante. I’m not blind. You two look-”

“Patty, we are not doing this-”

“Don’t worm your way out of this!” she snaps. “Why won’t you admit what’s obvious? He looks like you, has the same job as you, probably has the same powers. He’s clearly your-”

“He is not.”

“ _Bullshit!_ ” Thank god her mom isn’t here to hear this right now, or she’d be getting one hell of a scolding. “Are you just trying to dodge taking responsibility? Is that what this is? Are you really so-”

“He. Isn’t. Mine.”

“Deny it all you want! I know what my own eyes are showing me. And if you won’t tell me, then I’ll ask him-”

“ _No_ you won’t.” Anger flashes across Dante’s face. It makes Patty stiffen in surprise, but it doesn’t deter her. But just as she goes to fire back, Dante holds up a finger to silence her before he says, “He isn’t mine. He’s my brother’s.”

“Your… brother?” Patty’s long since grown used to not knowing anything about Dante’s past. It doesn’t make it any less surprising when she does learn something. “You have a brother?”

“Had.”

That solitary word, said with just the barest hint of aged grief, breaks her heart in a single blow. “Oh… I…”

“He died a long time ago.” She can tell he’s not happy to be talking about this. She just hopes that someday, he’ll be glad he did. “But apparently he left a little something behind.”

“He didn’t tell you he had a kid?”

“I doubt he knew.”

“Oh.” Patty looks down at her hands, unsure as to what to say.

Dante flops down in his desk chair, looking more tired by the minute. “And now that you know all this, you need to promise me this doesn’t go past us. Lady, Trish and Morrison know, and that’s all who get to know. Capiche?”

Patty begins to nod, but she stops when she remembers his earlier vehemence when she threatened to talk to Nero. “…does that not include Nero?”

Dante breathes a long sigh out of his nose. “No, it does not include Nero. And _no,_ this isn’t open for a debate. He doesn’t know, and it’s better that he doesn’t. End of discussion, Patty.”

“But-”

“End. Of. Discussion.”

It’s not often Dante gets this serious about anything, and Patty provoked his anger once already. She also knows that ultimately, it’s his family and his decision. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to go quietly into that good night. “Fine,” she says with a huff, heading for the door. “But mark my words, Dante,” she continues as she reaches for the handle. She casts a glancing frown in his direction. “he’s gonna find out sooner or later, whether you like it or not.” With that, she yanks open the door and heads home.


	13. Libration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Dante having some semblance of a family now, Patty has a difficult but necessary conversation with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alcoholism and depression talk ahoy. I warned about it a couple parts back but I wanted to remind everyone since it's been a few weeks.

Nero yawns as he trudges over to pick up the ringing phone. “Devil May Cry.”

“ _Sooooooo… I think this is the part where I say I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about everything. Dante made me promise so it wasn’t like I_ wanted _to hide it from you.”_

It takes Nero’s brain a second to get up to speed and figure out what Patty is saying. Primarily because one, he was about to go to bed and two, it’s rare for Patty to call him out of the blue like this. “Tell me about – oh. You knew about my dad.”

“ _Yeah… Well, I knew the bare essentials. I’m sure there’s a lot Dante didn’t tell me.”_

“I’m sure there’s still stuff he’s not telling me, either.” But he will tackle that problem later. “Nothing to be sorry about, Patty. Trish and Lady filled me in on everything and why nothing got said.”

“ _But I still feel bad. The whole thing was sooooo dumb. Dante just had to be an idiot about it.”_ Patty sighs. _“And honestly, the only reason he told me was because I was convinced you were his kid and he was trying to shirk his responsibilities. We got into an argument over it before he finally caved and told me. That’s also how I learned about Vergil.”_

“You never heard of him before that?”

“ _Nope. But Dante rarely talks about that stuff. Most of what I know about him I just sort of picked up over the years. I barely know anything about his family. It took me years before I even learned that photo on his desk is his mom. I don’t even know what happened to her.”_

“…demons killed her.” Nero never ceases to be amazed at just how well Dante keeps his past hidden from those closest to him. To an extent, Nero understands. Some things are just better left unsaid. But even Lady, by far Dante’s oldest and closest friend, has a lot of gaps in her information about Dante. And the more he hears from those closest to Dante and how little they know about him, the more Nero worries that Dante keeps things withheld for more than just self-preservation.

“ _Oh. That… I guess that explains a few things, huh?”_

“I only know that because of Trish.”

“ _God, he is the worst about this stuff.”_ There’s a huff of annoyance. _“I hope Vergil isn’t this bad. They better be letting you in on things. Like, it’s your family history and stuff, too, right? If they won’t-”_

“They have been. Not everything so far, but I’ve learned some stuff.” And most of it has been downright tragic.

“ _So I don’t need to yell at him yet. I mean… I guess I’d yell at both of them but, I don’t know your dad much so that’d be awkward.”_ There’s a hesitant pause. “ _…he also kind of scares me a little. He’s got a_ really _intense stare and… I don’t know. There’s just something about him. I don’t mean that to be a jerk or anything but…”_

Nero laughs. “Trust me, it’s okay. My dad’s off-putting to most people he meets. Just stick it out. He’ll come around eventually, though don’t expect him to be the warm, fuzzy type.”

“ _Yeah, I kind of got that impression.”_ There’s a thoughtful pause on the other end of the phone. “ _Hey, do you know when you’ll be up here next?”_

“Not sure. Probably not for a while.”

_“Oh, okay. Um… when you do come up, I wanna talk to you and your dad.”_

Nero’s a little taken aback by the request. He knows Patty likes hanging out with him, but why would she want to talk to him _and_ Vergil? “Alone?”

“ _Yeah. It’s not anything like… immediate. There’s just some stuff you two should know about Dante that Lady and Trish won’t say. Morrison probably won’t either.”_

This conversation just turned real ominous real fast. “…you’re making me a little nervous here, Patty.”

“ _Sorry! I swear, it’s not anything super awful. It’s just… it’s the kind of thing family should know. It’ll make sense when we talk about it.”_

“Okay, okay. I’ll make sure we find a way to talk alone. Don’t expect it to be anytime soon, so if this should-”

“ _It can wait and besides, it really should be in person, too. Just… trust me on this, okay? Thanks, Nero. I’ll let you go since I just also realized it’s kind of late where you are…”_

“It’s fine.” He barely bites back a yawn. “Later, Patty.”

After he hangs up, he rubs the back of his head and quietly walks back to his bedroom. He really has no idea what to make of that conversation. What the heck did Patty know about Dante that Trish, Lady and Morrison wouldn’t be willing to tell them? _Should_ she be telling them at all, if those three won’t? Nero scrubs his hands over his face as he takes the stairs. This is going to bug him until he gets up there.

* * *

It takes months before Nero has reason to make the long trip up to Capulet City. He hasn’t forgotten about his promise to Patty but scheduling in that time proves to be a challenge. It’s not like he and Vergil have much reason to go off on their own. Dante tends to monopolize all his free time while he’s visiting.

Patty tells him she’ll be hanging around a park not far from the shop, in the hopes that he’ll eventually be able to escape Dante. Nero promises that he’ll somehow get to her, even if he has to just walk out and drag his father with.

On the third night he’s there, he finally fabricates an excuse about wanting to take a walk, conveniently while Dante’s caught up in a debate with Trish and Lady about something involving one of their past escapades. Vergil seizes the chance to escape the debating din, and the pair slip out before Dante can protest.

“What a headache,” Vergil gripes as they set off down the sidewalk.

“Those three know how to go at it.” Nero shakes his head fondly as he leads them away from the shop. “But, ah… there’s someplace in particular I wanna go.”

“Mm?”

“You’ll see.”

Vergil falls quiet, and for once Nero is glad for it. It gives him time to think and try to prepare himself for whatever Patty wants to talk to them about. Even after all this time, he still has no idea. He hasn’t seen or heard anything about Dante that particularly alarms him. Then again, Dante reveals so little of himself to most people. It’s quite possible there’s something going on beneath the surface that Nero’s clueless about.

It’s a twenty-minute walk to the park Patty said she’d be. They find her stretched out on one of the park benches, playing on her phone. She glances up as they approach and waves them over.

“Nero,” Vergil says, his tone cautious and confused. “what is this about?”

“Ask her.” Nero waves at Patty as they stand in front of the bench. “She’s the one who wanted to talk to us.”

Patty scoots over on the bench, leaving room for Nero and Vergil to sit. “Yup. Glad you made it. How did you manage to slip out?”

“We told him we were taking a walk to get away from a debate over whether Lady got the final blow on some demon they fought way back when.” Nero takes a seat next to her. Vergil chooses to remain standing. “So… what’s this about?”

She looks down at her knees, her brow furrowed in thought. “It’s… ugh, sorry.” She blows out a sigh as she runs a hand through her hair, her movement agitated and nervous. “I kind of feel like I’m being a snitch, but you two should really know. Especially you,” she adds, glancing at Vergil.

“What do I need to know?”

“…That Dante’s an alcoholic. A recovering one, but you never stop being one, you know?”

It’s an emotional sucker punch that came at his blind spot. Dante’s always seemed so strong and collected. Sure, he’s a goofball and he can’t manage his money for shit, but he always came across as solid and unflappable. Now Nero realizes that has never been entirely the case.

Vergil remains stone-faced, his only outward reaction being his frown deepening. “How long?”

Patty shrugs. “I’m not completely sure. I’ve known him for… geez, eleven years? Almost eleven, yeah. And he was in the thick of it then. So probably longer than that.” She spares a glance at Nero. “You’re really lucky you didn’t meet him back then. I mean, I know he’s a total dork and sometimes you kind of want to strangle him. But back then? He used to be… god, he used to be so _mean_.”

Dante can be harsh every now and then, though usually with good reason. Nero’s only seen him be truly nasty once or twice, and it’s not something he would normally attribute to Dante. “Why?”

“He just was. Like, you know how he teases you and it can get under your skin a bit, but you know it’s mostly in good fun? Well, imagine his worst teasing and take all the fun out of it. He could be like that. I mean, it wasn’t all the time. Sometimes he was just _kind_ of a jerk and a little grumpy. Even a bit sweet on occasion. But _god_ could he also cut you down if he wanted to.” She snorts. “He used to call me a brat all the time. Sure, I was a kid and I had my moments, but I wasn’t so bad as to deserve that. And he’d say really insensitive stuff. I never knew if he was just thoughtless or if he wanted to be that cruel. Just… overall he was a lot meaner and _miserable_. I’m pretty sure the drinking had something to do with it.”

The wheels are turning in Vergil’s head; Nero can practically hear them spinning. “Was he often drunk?”

“It’s funny because I almost never saw him drunk. He told me that it’s hard for him to stay drunk. Being half-demon and all, I guess.”

“He’s not wrong,” Vergil mutters. “So even if he wasn’t intoxicated, he still drank frequently?”

Patty nods. “I was over there a lot, and I swear, _every time_ I was there, he had a drink in his hand. Usually Jack Daniels or some kind of whisky. Occasionally vodka. If he was really broke, he’d resort to beer.”

“But you said he’s recovered, right?” Nero has never seen Dante drink. He must have gotten on the wagon at some point. “When did that happen?”

“You guys know how he got stuck in the underworld once before, right? That was about ten years ago. And he was down there for nearly two years, so he dried out then. He kind of started back up again when he got out, though it didn’t seem as bad as before.”

“Drinking less doesn’t make him recovered,” Vergil remarks with condescension.

“I wasn’t done,” Patty says with a huff. “He kept at it for a little while. He didn’t really stop until about five or six years ago.” She pointedly looks at Nero. “After he met you.”

“That’s when he stopped?”

“Yup. He got back from that mission and he… really turned around. Like, he was starting to get kind of better before then? He stopped being as much of a jerk and was nicer to be around. But after he met you, he really got it together.” Patty pauses, and adds, “Yeah. I’ve never seen him touch the stuff since then.”

It never occurred to Nero before just how much finding him meant to Dante. Granted, back then he didn’t know half of what he does now, but even in retrospect, it hadn’t really crossed his mind until now. He acknowledges that Dante changed his life, and he’s grateful for it. He just never realized that he had changed his, too.

Vergil looks thoughtful, but he reveals nothing more about his thoughts. He simply asks, “Do you know why he started in the first place?”

“Not for sure, but honestly? Probably because he’s depressed. And I don’t mean in the colloquial way of like, ‘oh he’s kind of bummed out.’ I mean actually depressed, like… probably should be on meds and seeing a therapist, but fuck knows that’ll never happen.”

“And what exactly lead you to that diagnosis?”

“Besides the excess drinking? When I would visit Devil May Cry back then, if Dante wasn’t on a job, he’d be either playing pool, napping, or drinking. That’s it. That’s all he would do. Sleep, drink, and shoot balls. When he had to get rid of the pool table, he resorted to reading magazines or watching TV, when the damn thing worked.” Patty sighs. “I’m not kidding, he had no life outside of his job. And for all the shit I give him for not cleaning, I’m pretty sure it’s not all laziness. It’s really hard to keep up with basic chores like that when you’re depressed.” She shrugs weakly. “He’ll never admit it, though, so that’s why I never tried to talk to him about it.”

It clicks together for Nero: why she wanted to talk to them, why she wanted them to know about all of this. “You wanted to make sure we knew all this in case things get bad.”

“Yeah. I know you’re far away so it’s harder, but…” She gestures at Vergil. “You’re living with him, so you really should know. I’m not telling you all this so you rag on him for it or anything. Just… in case you see something, you know to raise the alarm. And I know you two kind of have a… history, I guess. But still… I’m really glad he has someone living with him. Even if you guys fight or bicker and break a few things, at least he’s not living alone anymore. Maybe this’ll help him finally have a life outside his job.” She sighs, relief audible as she tucks some hair behind her ear. “And he’s been way better about it lately. I think he’s finally happy, you know? I’m not so worried anymore.”

* * *

The first five minutes of the walk back is couched in a heavy silence. When it grows too oppressive to stand, Nero goes for the obvious, “That’s not what I was expecting.”

Vergil’s jaw clenches tightly as he forces out, “Nor I.”

“…you’re angry.”

“Not at the girl,” he clarifies.

“Then who? Dante?” Nero shakes his head in disbelief. “Don’t start with the weakness crap, Dad. Sometimes people just-”

“That’s not it, either.” His tone darkens as he continues on to explain, “I’ve been living with him for nearly six months, and this is the first I’m hearing about this. From a child, no less. This should have come from Lady or Morrison.”

Nero nods; Vergil’s got a right to be upset, though he just hopes he doesn’t start throwing out accusations. “Trish, too.”

“I’m not holding her accountable for this one. Because if this started when I think it started, she likely would not have known it was a new problem.”

“When do you think it started?”

Vergil doesn’t respond immediately. He lets the silence hang as they cut through another park. It’s almost dark out, but there are a few people milling about, chatting amongst themselves or on cell phones. He says nothing until they start down the path towards the city, an empty cobblestone lane surrounded by trees and the distant echoes of city life. “…if finding family spurred him to sober up, then it stands to reason that losing family likely set him down that path in the first place.”

Dante’s lost his family a few times: first his father, then the traumatizing, brutal murder of his mother. Given that he was a child during those, and _hopefully_ his problem doesn’t go that far back, that just leaves: “When he killed you.”

Vergil nods curtly, lips drawn in a tight line. “I don’t know for certain, not until I talk to those two about it.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

“I hardly care if it is or isn’t,” he says, crossing his arms. “I want answers.” He aims a hard look at Nero. “I also want to know why none of this came from them.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Nero considers something for a moment before he adds, “You want me there when you do?”

Vergil also takes a moment to turn the idea over in his head, his fingers drumming a staccato against his arm. “It can’t hurt. And it may help to prevent it from turning into an argument. If I go at them alone, they’ll likely see it as an attack. Lady certainly will, anyway.”

Nero isn’t so sure about that, but he won’t argue his point. His father and tact are still working out their differences, so he can at least play mediator should things take a turn. “I’m here until the weekend, so we’ve got a few days to figure this out.”

“This’ll be a challenge. I don’t want Dante catching wind of this.”

“Well look at that. I’m the one keeping secrets for a change,” Nero says wryly. “So this is what it feels like.”

Vergil shoots a disapproving glare at his son. “If secrets are kept, it’s with good reason. And Patty is right: Dante won’t take to any of this well. As hypocritical of him as it is,” he adds with a mutter. “We’re wasting time. This may be the only chance we’ll have to come up with a plan. There’s no guarantee we’ll find time once we’re back at the shop. Focus.”

“All right, all right.” Nero gestures at his father. “So, you got any ideas?”

Vergil suddenly slows, his brow raised. “Actually,” A smirk forms. “I just might.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, one day I will write light-hearted stuff.
> 
> Also, I have a little... offer? Proposition? Idea. Idk, my brain is really tired but bear with me. I made a Ko-Fi page after some people suggested it. Since Ko-Fi has a feature where you can make posts and updates (#thingsIjustlearnedtoday, #helloIamsobehindonthetimes) I was wondering if you all would be interested in me posting on there with updates about what I'm working on? I thought it might be nice to be able to keep you guys updated on where I'm at, especially if there's a delay. AO3 doesn't have an easy way of talking to you all en masse and social media can be hit or miss depending on who's on where. This might be an easier way, so there's one place to go for updates. Please let me know if you'd be interested or not! It's here ( https://ko-fi.com/regen ) if you want to see it, although it's super barebones atm. (For the record this is not me asking for donations, I do NOT expect that at all.)


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